March to the Right You Penguins!

Obama and the Unions (and Big Business)

2011-09-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?

These guys: Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers.

Rather than "Hope" and "Change", Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:

* The Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug companies spell corporate profits and more government control

* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda

* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)

* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists

* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics

If you’ve wondered what’s happening to our country, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages” that create make-work government jobs, this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack.

Will China Listen in on YOUR Phone Calls Today?

2011-09-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

Pentagon fears listening posts from China; tech firm tied to nation’s military
By Eli Lake
The Washington Times
Thursday, September 1, 2011

A Pentagon report has found that a multibillion-dollar Chinese telecommunications company that has been seeking to make major inroads in the U.S. market has close ties to China's military, despite the company’s denials.

The Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on China's military, released last month, identifies Huawei as a high-tech company linked to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

“The shipbuilding and defense electronics sectors, benefiting from China’s leading role in producing commercial shipping and information technologies, have witnessed the greatest progress over the last decade,” the report states. “Information technology companies in particular, including Huawei, Datang, and Zhongxing, maintain close ties to the PLA.”

That last sentence prompted Huawei’s vice president for external relations, William Plummer, to write a letter last week urging Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to rescind the allegation.

“This reference has no basis in fact and unjustly perpetuates an aura of doubt and distrust around Huawei that has the effect of prejudicing potential U.S. customers away from the products and solutions that will modernize our communications infrastructure,” Mr. Plummer wrote.

At issue for Huawei is widespread concern among U.S. military and intelligence agencies that Huawei’s switches, chips and firmware contain “back doors” that can give China's military the equivalent of listening posts all over the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure.

Huawei’s defenders have countered that the company is being singled out because it is based in China and that U.S. companies such as Cisco Systems contract the development and production of their equipment to foreign countries and are at the same risk for back doors as the gear sold by Huawei.

In the past four years, Huawei has tried to acquire American high-tech companies and win contracts to build up the U.S. 4G wireless network. The company’s efforts, however, have run into resistance from the U.S. government.

In 2008, the Treasury Department-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States blocked a proposed sale of the software company 3Com to Huawei, based on national security concerns.

Last year, representatives of the National Security Agency urged major telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Sprint to cancel a deal that would put Huawei firmware and hardware on the cell towers of the 4G wireless network.

“U.S. businesses and government entities should be very wary of entering into business with any of the companies identified by the Pentagon’s report on Chinese military power as having ties to the People’s Liberation Army,” said Dan Blumenthal, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former China policy official at the Pentagon.

“The report is vetted by the secretaries of state and defense and the national security adviser. It represents the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community,” Mr. Blumenthal said.

In his letter to Mr. Panetta, Mr. Plummer said: “Huawei has always operated and continues to operate, independent of any ownership, control, or linkage with the Chinese government or military.”

He added that Huawei’s equipment has “been audited and passed the security requirements of 45 of the top 50 global telecommunications operators. No customer or government has ever found any variance from international standards at any time, including those material to national security.”

Huawei was founded in 1988 by Ren Zhengfei, a former PLA engineer. The company has provided wireless network products to many countries in the Third World and more recently has helped build the wireless network for the United Kingdom.

War with Mexico Coming

2011-09-04T01:34:00.000-07:00

Okay for decades I heard these weird conspiracy theorists blab about how the Mexicans wanted to take back part of the USA, the southern part, mainly California. As seriously screwed up as Cali currently is right now, can anyone say we'd miss them?! Haha. However I ignored these weird Doomsayers, these odd Cassandra's, but boy was I foolish in doing so. A hispanic reporter in Phoenix proudly posted the upcoming War With Mexico, and how and when it will happen. Its a shocking post that I am reposting below. Read it and BELIEVE it my friends, they have plans for dismembering the USA. What really upsets me is that Mexico truly has no claim on any of America. The native American Indians that owned the lands still live on them to this day: the Choctaw, the Apache, the Cherokee, etc. Only the Spanish conquistadors attack on these people before the white man came allows them any claim, and its a BS claim at that. Central American tribes have no claim on North American tribal land....period. Oh and if they want a war, they've got one: North Americans are heavily armed. :)

Latino group claims Aztlán war in next five years
Miguel Perez
Phoenix Civil Rights Examiner
August 27, 2011

Phoenix-based Nuestros Reconquistos claims that there will be a war very similar to the Civil War fought in the next five years. “La Raza and MEChA have already talked to Latinos and Phoenix and explained that Latinos need to arm themselves for war,” says Nuestros Reconquistos President Manuel Longoria.

Cecilia Maldonado of Chicanos Unidos Arizona isn’t hoping for any sort of war, but believes it may be unavoidable. “For generations, our people have prepared us to take back the lands of the Southwest that were stolen from our Mexican ancestors. Because of the bad economy and many racist laws, Latinos will be forced to fight sooner than later,” says Mrs. Maldonado.

Latino groups believe they have enough people in states such as California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to successfully wage a war on the United States. Who’s side will you be on?

Devilish Downgrade

2011-08-08T08:53:00.001-07:00

To Be Fair, Obama’s Responsibility for the Downgrade Is only 15 Percent
August 7, 2011 by Dan Mitchell

It was a strange experience to read the comments and emails generated by yesterday’s post on the “Obama downgrade.”

Democrats and liberals were upset that I blamed Obama for the downgrade, as you might expect. Republicans and conservatives, however, were agitated that my first sentence pointed out that Bush bore significant responsibility for the spending binge that created the fiscal crisis.

This got me thinking about the underlying causes of America’s long-term fiscal problems and whether it might be possible to come up with some sort of reasonable estimate on which Presidents are most responsible for fiscal crisis.

So I decided to look at the most recent long-run forecast from the Congressional Budget Office. As you might suspect, entitlement programs are THE reason why the United States is in deep trouble.

What does this allow us to say about various presidents? Well, it turns out that Social Security is a relatively minor part of the problem, so even though President Roosevelt’s policies exacerbated and extended the Great Depression, the program he created is only responsible for a small share of the fiscal crisis. To give the illusion of scientific exactitude, let’s assign FDR 13.2 percent of the blame.

The health care numbers are much harder to disentangle because it’s not apparent how much of the increase is due to Medicare, Medicaid, Bush’s prescription drug entitlement, and Obamacare. A healthcare policy wonk may know these numbers, but the CBO long-run forecast didn’t provide much detail.

So with a big caveat that these are just wild estimations, I feel reasonably comfortable in saying that both Bush and Obama made matters worse with their reckless entitlement expansions, but that they merely deepened a fiscal hole that was created when President Johnson imposed Medicare and Medicaid.

With that in mind (and ignoring, for the sake of simplicity, the role of other Presidents – such as Nixon – who expanded the size and scope of health entitlements), here is my ranking of presidential responsibility for America’s fiscal decline.

This does not mean, however, that it was unfair yesterday to apply the “Obama Downgrade” label.

In part, he is responsible because the downgrade from Standard & Poor happened on his watch. But the real reason he earned that label is that he doubled down on the reckless policies of his predecessors and demagogued against lawmakers such as Cong. Paul Ryan who actually have tried to solve the problem.

MUST REPOST!

2011-08-08T08:14:00.000-07:00

The Myth of the Anti-War Left, or “No Blood For Incompetence!”

Posted by Eric Olsen at 12:05 am - August 8, 2011.
Filed under: Arrogance of the Liberal Elites,Democratic demagoguery,Democrats & Double Standards,Liberal Hypocrisy

In an earlier thread, I observed the distinct absence of the sort of vitriolic, unrelenting protests against America’s military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan since Obama took office in 2008, and logically postulated that as a result, what the MSM regularly referred to as “the anti-war movement” was in reality, nothing more than a sustained, petulant tantrum directed at a Republican president.

Indeed, even those few on the far-left who still can’t rid themselves of their Bush Derangement Syndrome recognized a long time ago just how utterly devoid of character their fellow progressives really are:

Progressives have made a deal with the devil. And the bargain is this: they’ll shut up about murdering innocent Afghan and Pakistani civilians, about US assassination squads, and about the wholesale assault on our civil liberties, if they can get the goodies they want here at home: more government spending, more government employees, and more government period. After all, who cares if a lot of foreigners get killed? As long as they get theirs.

Oh, so true.

The Best Video EVER

2011-08-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

Amazing businesswoman rails against Obama's disastrous economic policies, watch it, its EPIC!

Note what she says at 1:47; she acknowledges the president inherited a mess, but points out that as a CEO of a company, she inherits a mess everyday. ”That is my job title, to fix problems, to get people to work together in harmony for one common goal.” Finally, she says the president needs to put together a plan asks the president, “Why can’t you put together a plan.”

Norway and Kill Cultists

2011-07-30T01:13:00.001-07:00

First recognized about ten years ago in the United States, Kill Cultists have spread to a half dozen Western nations on Earth, including gruesome strikes in the cities of Norway, Spain, France, the USA, and the United Kingdom. These horrible terrorists are the bane of law enforcement officials everywhere since they try and "rack up" as many dead bodies as possible before they are killed. Kill Cultists believe they will attain notoriety and immortality by becoming "famous" by mass murdering as many people as possible. They follow a few odd rules, however, which (luckily) keeps their overall death count low: all "kills" must be by hand or something made by hand (ie a bomb). Although nuclear or bioweapons haven't been used yet, many government officials fear just that and are working towards a real way to deal with them across Earth. Kill Cultists usually do not survive their "spree" but if they do advocates for their punishment encourage a swift death sentence so that they can mitigate their "popularity" (famous kill cultists like Charles Manson have become popular with the fringe by publishing books, articles, and random messages to the public). America, because of its many personal freedoms, has been a nation which has been hit by a dozen strikes by these one-man terrorists over the last few years, mainly on college campuses and malls. Supporters of a quick death sentence say that to kill these people (like Timothy McVeigh) stunts the individuals popularity among his/her group, a policy that appears to be working (no McVeigh repeats so far). Kill cultists are almost exclusively young males.

US Base in Bahrain in Danger
July 26, 2011: The United States is quietly looking for another country, on the west coast of the Persian Gulf, to host an American naval base. This is because months of political unrest in Bahrain has put the American base there in danger. So the U.S. Navy is looking at the possibility, and cost, of moving the Bahrain base to Dubai or Qatar. The navy is not happy about making the move, as it would be expensive and disruptive. But if the unrest in Bahrain continues, and escalates, there may be no choice.

Over the last few years, the U.S. has been expanding its naval base in Bahrain. The navy has taken over the Mina Salman port, which transferred all commercial operations to the new Khalifa bin Salman port. The navy has leased 28 hectares (70 acres) of waterfront space at Mina Salman. At the capital, the navy has an .4 hectare (one acre) area at the port there, and 17 hectares (42 acres) at a nearby base. The new port is large enough to berth the largest U.S. ships (the Nimitz class carriers.) The port currently supports over a dozen American warships operating in the area.

Thus the U.S. Navy has turned a minor naval station in the Persian Gulf, into one of its most crucial bases for the war on terrorism. The U.S. moved into Bahrain in 1973, when the British gave it up. The Bahrainis, like most of their Arab neighbors, like to have some friendly Western power in residence. This provides some insurance against Saudi Arabia to the west, and Iran to the east.

Before 1918, the British presence helped keep the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire off their backs as well. All the Bahrainis ask is that the foreign troops be quiet, and discreet. Until 2002, the Bahraini base was just a place where U.S. warships could tie up for repairs, or recreation for the crews. About 3,600 American military personnel were stationed there. There was an airbase for navy and air force transports and warplanes. The Bahrainis denied much of this activity, so as to avoid getting pilloried by other Arab states. But Bahrain is a small place (a 655 square kilometer island about 20 kilometers off the Saudi coast, with a population of about 1.1 million), and it's difficult for things like warships and warplanes to go unnoticed.

In the last eight years, several hundred million dollars has gone into building more permanent facilities. The trailers and other "temporary structures" were replaced by more permanent buildings and facilities. This included a new pier, just for military ships. There is a shopping center just for the military, and a lot of recreational facilities for the troops. Until 2004, some troops could bring their families. But now it's all military, and the brass try to keep everyone happy on base. It's a one year tour for most, but Bahrain is pretty popular. Living conditions are good, and the local Bahrainis are pretty mellow and friendly by Middle Eastern standards, at least most of the time.

Iran Blows Up Cyprus Naval Base
July 29, 2011: On July 11th, some 2,000 tons of Iranian munitions and explosives, stored in the open at a naval base in South Cyprus for the last two years, caught fire and exploded. The blast knocked out a nearby power plant (supplying 60 percent of the electricity in South Cyprus), killed over a dozen people, damaged hundreds of buildings and was totally avoidable. Munitions experts had warned the government against storing all those explosives in the open, under the hot Mediterranean sun, was dangerous. They were right.

Although most of these munitions were of recent manufacture, you cannot be too careful how you store, and handle, this stuff. For example, last year, four Ukrainian sailors were seriously injured when two 30mm cannon shells spontaneously exploded. Actually, those shells didn't go off entirely without warning. The navy reported that the shells were old, beyond their “use by” date, and were probably set off by vibrations ships generate during training exercises.

This is a common problem in countries that have long used ammunition bought from Russia. During the communist period, as per the Soviet custom, old ammunition was not destroyed, but kept around. Communist countries were poor. It made sense to keep those old mortar and artillery shells (plus bombs and military explosives) for the inevitable war with the enemies of socialism. But the chemical reactions taking place in propellants and explosives, once these items are manufactured, eventually cause dangerous side effects. Over time, the compounds, that make the propellants and explosives work, deteriorate. This renders the propellants and explosives useless or, in many cases, unstable and very dangerous. Expose even new munitions to the hot sun for two three Mediterranean Summers, and the stuff becomes more, well, spontaneously explosive.

This has resulted in many spontaneous explosions on Russian ships and in ammunition depots. These accidents also happen outside Russia. Three years ago, an Albanian ammunition processing facility north of the capital exploded. There were over 200 casualties, including at least nine dead (largely among the 4,000 civilians living nearby). Over 300 buildings were destroyed, and over 2,000 damaged. The facility was used to destroy old ammo, which is a condition for Albania to be allowed to join NATO. There were about 100,000 tons of old ammunition in Albania, and the destroyed facility dismantled 500-600 tons of the stuff each month. The explosion in Albania probably occurred during the process of extracting explosives from the old ammo. This can be tricky, as the least little spark, can set this stuff off. Worse, older ammo in an unstable state can go off without a spark.

This disaster was part of a trend. Four years ago, there was a large explosion in an ammo depot in the African nation of Mozambique. About a hundred died. Seven years ago, an even greater disaster occurred in Nigeria, when a munitions depot near the capital cooked off, killing over 200 people.

Russia has also had problems with elderly, and cranky, munitions. In the 1990s, there were several munitions depot explosions, some of them quite spectacular. Russia, however, tended to put these depots in isolated areas, so the casualties were low. However, the Russians took the hint, and disposed of huge quantities of Cold War surplus munitions.

How did all that stuff get to Cyprus in the first place? In January, 2009, a U.S. warship in the Gulf of Aden spotted a former Russian merchant ship, the Monchegorsk, that was then flying a Cypriot flag. The Monchegorsk had originally been spotted leaving an Iranian port, and heading for the Suez canal. Egyptian authorities were alerted and the Monchegorsk was forced into an Egyptian port to be searched. Munitions, believed headed for Gaza, were found hidden in the cargo. But the Monchegorsk was released because Department of Defense lawyers were uncertain if the weapons found are sufficient evidence that Iran was in violation of UN resolution 1747, and, even so, did anyone have the authority to seize anything. But once the ship exited the Suez canal, the U.S. persuaded Cyprus (which, technically, has control over the ship) to seize it when it passed Cyprus, and do a thorough search. Some 2,ooo tons of munitions were found, taken off the ship, and stored in Cyprus until the UN bureaucrats could decide what to do.

UN resolution (1747) prohibits Iran from exporting weapons. The exact wording of the resolution is; " Decides that Iran shall not supply, sell or transfer directly or indirectly from its territory or by its nationals or using its flag vessels or aircraft any arms or related materiel, and that all States shall prohibit the procurement of such items from Iran by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, and whether or not originating in the territory of Iran. " The U.S. used 1747 as a license to mess with Iranian efforts to export weapons to its terrorist customers.

U.S. warships in Task Force 151 (the anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden) have been ordered to watch for ships that have taken on cargo in Iran, and then head through the Gulf of Aden for the Suez canal. Iran is believed to be increasing its efforts to smuggle weapons into Gaza for Hamas, a terrorist organization that has been supported by Iran since the 1990s. Such Iranian cargo ships have been caught carrying weapons to Gaza before. The Iranians try to either land the weapons on the Gaza coast, or smuggle them into Egypt and then through the smuggling tunnels under the Gaza/Egyptian border. But this time the weapons ended up in Cyprus, until they exploded.

2011-07-05T12:37:00.001-07:00

Chosen by the ring, chosen by God
Exclusive: Drew Zahn says 'Green Lantern' glows with biblical themes

Posted: June 19, 2011
3:24 pm Eastern

By Drew Zahn's column

Now in theaters, "Green Lantern" doesn't have the brilliant writing of fellow superhero film "The Dark Knight," the sharp dialogue displayed in "Ironman" or the acting chops of Marvel's "X-Men" – but that doesn't mean this newest comic book movie isn't a whole lot of fun.

Indeed, the predictable plot and storyline seem to be taken into account by lead actor Ryan Reynolds, who plays reluctant hero Hal Jordan (a.k.a. Green Lantern) with just a touch of heart and the subdued devil-may-care attitude that has made him a romantic comedy heartthrob, without the over-the-top schlock that fellow comedian Seth Rogen used to destroy another emerald superhero flick, "The Green Hornet."

Reynolds' resulting character is a just slightly rogue, but believably honorable superhero who is simply, inherently likable.

Furthermore, "Green Lantern" packs gorgeous 3-D technology (do not see this movie in 2-D, you'll be sorely disappointed) and fun computer effects to make this comic book adaptation leap off the screen.

Yes, I reluctantly admit the script and generally bland acting deserve criticism. But this isn't a movie out to win Oscars. Like an '80s television show (think "The Dukes of Hazzard" or "MacGyver"), the goal is pit the good guys against the bad guys, flirt with a pretty lady, blow some stuff up along the way and have a good time. To these less-than-lofty goals, "The Green Lantern" rises to the occasion.

"Green Lantern" also plays upon a pair of crystal clear themes, morals to the story that give the movie an inspiring, even biblical message.

In the mythos of the Lanterns, green is the color of "will," while yellow is the color of fear. The good guys, thus, wear green, while the bad guys wear … you guessed it, yellow.

Most of the film's messages, therefore, take aim at the destructive power of fear:

"Will is what makes you take action," a leader of the universe's many Green Lanterns explains. "Fear is what stops you, makes you feel weak. … Ignore your fear."

"You don't think your dad felt afraid," the film's female lead tells Jordan. "He found a way to defeat it. It's called courage."

"The ring didn't see you were fearless," she further tells him. "It saw you had the ability to overcome fear. It saw that you're courageous."

"Once you give in to fear, you never go back," Hal challenges his allies. "Don't give in to fear. Fight it. Fight it with me."

My only criticism of this theme is that movie claims courage in the form of strengthened will overcomes fear, while the Bible explains our will is insufficient to overcome fear. It is God who wills in us to act and to do (Philippians 2:13), the Bible says, and "perfect love" – not perfected willpower – drives out the yellow scourge (1 John 4:18; 2 Timothy 1:7).

But yet another theme of the film brings even more biblical truth to bear.

The ring that turns Hal Jordan into Green Lantern formerly belonged to an alien. When that alien died, the ring picked Jordan as the next to bear its power and responsibility.

But Jordan, who admits he's an irresponsible "screw up," is afraid he's isn't worthy of the honor and afraid he'll make a mess of things yet again.

The theme is strikingly similar to God's election of the saints (Ephesians 1:11-12), choosing the weak to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:26-27), gifting his elect to do abundantly more than they ever asked or imagined (Romans 11:6; Ephesians 3:16-21).

Are we worthy of being chosen? No (Ephesians 2:8). Can we ever live up to the choosing? Not by ourselves, not based on our track record; but our Redeemer sees something in us that He can craft for His purposes (Ephesians 2:10).

"The ring chose you," the other Lanterns try to assure Jordan. "The ring sees something in you that you do not yet see. … The ring never makes a mistake."

More than just a passing metaphor, Hal Jordan's transformation by a higher power that foresaw the hero he could become is grand finale of the film. It gives "Green Lantern" the glow of a redemptive message that helps it overcome its moviemaking faults.

China Uses Slave Labor in WOW, other virtual games

2011-05-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

China used prisoners in lucrative internet gaming work
Labour camp detainees endure hard labour by day, online 'gold farming' by night
World of Warcraft
Chinese prisoners were forced into 'gold farming' – building up credits on online games such as World of Warcraft.
Danny Vincent in Beijing

guardian.co.uk, Wed 25 May 2011 19.49 BST

As a prisoner at the Jixi labour camp, Liu Dali would slog through tough days breaking rocks and digging trenches in the open cast coalmines of north-east China. By night, he would slay demons, battle goblins and cast spells.

Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do.

"Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off."
Memories from his detention at Jixi re-education-through-labour camp in Heilongjiang province from 2004 still haunt Liu. As well as backbreaking mining toil, he carved chopsticks and toothpicks out of planks of wood until his hands were raw and assembled car seat covers that the prison exported to South Korea and Japan. He was also made to memorise communist literature to pay off his debt to society.

But it was the forced online gaming that was the most surreal part of his imprisonment. The hard slog may have been virtual, but the punishment for falling behind was real.

"If I couldn't complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things," he said.

It is known as "gold farming", the practice of building up credits and online value through the monotonous repetition of basic tasks in online games such as World of Warcraft. The trade in virtual assets is very real, and outside the control of the games' makers. Millions of gamers around the world are prepared to pay real money for such online credits, which they can use to progress in the online games.

The trading of virtual currencies in multiplayer games has become so rampant in China that it is increasingly difficult to regulate. In April, the Sichuan provincial government in central China launched a court case against a gamer who stole credits online worth about 3000rmb.

The lack of regulations has meant that even prisoners can be exploited in this virtual world for profit.

According to figures from the China Internet Centre, nearly £1.2bn of make- believe currencies were traded in China in 2008 and the number of gamers who play to earn and trade credits are on the rise.

It is estimated that 80% of all gold farmers are in China and with the largest internet population in the world there are thought to be 100,000 full-time gold farmers in the country.

In 2009 the central government issued a directive defining how fictional currencies could be traded, making it illegal for businesses without licences to trade. But Liu, who was released from prison before 2009 believes that the practice of prisoners being forced to earn online currency in multiplayer games is still widespread.

"Many prisons across the north-east of China also forced inmates to play games. It must still be happening," he said.

"China is the factory of virtual goods," said Jin Ge, a researcher from the University of California San Diego who has been documenting the gold farming phenomenon in China. "You would see some exploitation where employers would make workers play 12 hours a day. They would have no rest through the year. These are not just problems for this industry but they are general social problems. The pay is better than what they would get for working in a factory. It's very different," said Jin.

"The buyers of virtual goods have mixed feelings … it saves them time buying online credits from China," said Jin.

The emergence of gold farming as a business in China – whether in prisons or sweatshops could raise new questions over the exporting of goods real or virtual from the country.

"Prison labour is still very widespread – it's just that goods travel a much more complex route to come to the US these days. And it is not illegal to export prison goods to Europe, said Nicole Kempton from the Laogai foundation, a Washington-based group which opposes the forced labour camp system in China.

2011-03-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

Why I Support Infosocialism
Infosocialism is a political philosophy developed (under the name "information socialism") by the American "Socrates III" in 2010. Originally from the left-anarchist tradition, Socrates felt that the vision of a pure anarchosocialist society was unrealistic (and in some cases criminal). Nevertheless, he observed that although modern civilization was utterly dependent on information technologies, the central notion of "intellectual property" often gave rise to significant injustice. He believes that the state should not criminalize owning life-saving information and popular digital information (like CD and DVD media) for the sake of the corporation. Distributing the benefits of such innovation fairly to society is the mainstream media's job, not the governments. Infosocialism thus begins with the premise that "information needs to be free," but redefined freedom as the nationalization of intellectual property and its free distribution by all citizens of the World Wide Web. Thus, the government does protect patents, but continues in its basic duties of protecting society and individuals. This is less absurd when one imagines a "university" rather than "corporate" model of research and development.

Infosocialist doctrine will surely fail to take hold in the hyper-developed nations like America and Japan and will instead take root in less-developed nations, many of whom feel that they were are being exploited by wealthier corporations' locks on major genetic patents, nanotechnology designs, and digital media, and information software.

Like many legal concepts, intellectual property is a fiction, viable only as long as everyone agrees to be bound by it. At the beginning of the 21st century, fierce controversies are beginning to break out over the ownership of computer software, digital recordings of music, genetically engineered seeds, and other forms of intellectual property. Whenever the public sees too great a discrepancy between the value of information and the price being charged for it, piracy becomes widespread. Entire nations like China and most of Africa, falling behind in the race for technical innovation, choose not to enforce the international agreements protecting intellectual property. The goal of Infosocialism is to make sure the artificial scarcity of information (and the high prices charged by people to make lots of profit) are negated as much as possible so that people can have the cures for diseases that can kill them, access to gene-modded crops to prevent widespread starvation in whole countries, and forcing the governments of the world to get back to the more important job of running their nations and their economies instead of punishing media pirates (usually kids) with criminal and financial penalties.

How to be a Good Liberal
1. You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand.
2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.
3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are more of a threat than nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Iran or Chinese and North Korean communists.
4. You have to believe that there was no art before federal funding.
5. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical changes in the earth's climate and more affected by soccer moms driving SUV'S.
6. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial, but being homosexual is natural.
7. You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.
8. You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th-graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.
9. You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but PETA activists do.
10. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.
11. You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
12. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.
13. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, or Abraham Lincoln.
14. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.
15. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.
16. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag queens and transvestites should be constitutionally protected, and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.
17. You have to believe that this message is a part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy.

Orbital Service Station
A new solution for the growing space junk (debris and non functioning satellites in orbit) problem is the use of robotic repair and resupply satellites. The second one (the Space Infrastructure Servicing, or SIS satellite) is going up in four years, to refuel communications satellites. Many satellites cost a billion dollars to build and put into orbit. But their lifespan is often limited by the amount of fuel they can carry (to make minor, but essential, adjustments in their orbit). While many satellite experts believe the technology is not yet there to do this sort of thing, a successful test was carried out four years ago.

This experiment was called Orbital Express, which consisted of two satellites. One of the satellites tested robotic hardware and software, to do maintenance work on the other bird, as well as transferring fuel. With satellites costing so much, it's become cost effective to develop and build satellites that can do repairs, upgrades and refueling while these expensive birds are still up there. Unlike in the past, satellites can be built to last for a decade or more, especially if they can be serviced. Previously, the only option was to get the Space Shuttle to do it, but that cost over a hundred million dollars per repair mission (because each Shuttle mission was so expensive, and overbooked). Robotic repair satellites are a lot cheaper. Orbital Express was test of the concept, which many satellite engineers had been demanding for decades. The test was a success, and that led to the SIS bird, which will do it for real, and get paid for it.

Most of these service missions will be for refueling satellites, which often have small jets, used to reposition themselves. But other can replace worn or damaged components, install upgraded equipment (like a more powerful onboard computer). Future satellites can be designed to accommodate SIS tools and capabilities, further reducing the cost of these services, and expanding the number of satellites that can be tended to per SIS mission. The plan is to have a supply satellite come up regularly to replenish the SIS fuel and spares, and then return to earth for reuse. But the larger, and more expensive, SIS satellite will stay in orbit for as long as it is able, because it will probably not be built for re-entry and reuse.

Once robots are doing the satellite servicing, the cost of building and operating satellites will come down 50 percent or more in a decade or so, and even more after that. Plus, there will be fewer retired (to being a traffic hazard) satellites in orbit.

Trash the Size of Texas

2011-01-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

A close friend of mine told me a whopper of a story about the enormous amount of trash in the oceans of the world, enough that it would cover the size of Texas twice over! Shocked, I had to discover if this was the truth for surely such a enormous amount of trash would be devastating to the native life in the oceans. However I have run into a huge amount of ecological propaganda in the last fifteen years, mainly spouted by ecological evangelicals like Al Gore (who has earned more than $100 million lying about this issue). I have wisely learned from former author Michael Crichton on discerning real information from group-think info-lies and independent research is always best in situations like these so I hit the books and Web. What I found was unexpected and disappointing: again the eco-left is lying about the environment to destroy human growth and potential in the world. There is NOT a huge amount of trash and plastics in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas: again the false preaching by the Eco Evangelists has been unraveled! The amount of garbage in the worlds oceans is nothing like what is being portrayed in the media.

In addition, a Oregon State University researcher has found that the media has been greatly exaggerating the size of the “Great Garbage Patch” found between California and Japan.

Angelicque White, an assistant professor of oceanography at Oregon State University, has studied the “Great Garbage Patch” and all of the media stories surrounding it, and concluded that most media reports have grossly overestimated the size of this garbage patch.

White came to this conclusion after taking part in an expedition where the objective was to understand how much plastic debris is out there and how it affects the surrounding environment, such as microbial communities. [...] With her research backing her up, White says that the media has exaggerated the size of the “Great Garbage Patch,” making claims like the oceans are filled with more plastic than plankton, or that the patch is twice the size of Texas and has been growing tenfold each decade since 1950.

“There is no doubt that the amount of plastic in the world’s oceans is troubling, but this kind of exaggeration undermines the credibility of scientists,” said White.

Someone relatively soon is going to discover all the OIL made in the plastics and come up with a simple bio-engineered plankton that will simply eat all the trash away, storing the plastic in tiny bladders to be recycled by the intelligent person who will modify an already well-known form of life that eats oil-based products: it has been used before to help clean up oil spills. More HERE.

Repeal of DADT: Disaster

2011-01-12T08:26:00.000-08:00

Even though the ink hasn't been wet for a single month, the disastrous results of the repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy is already beginning. Such bizarre social policies have been enacted before on a large scale within the US armed forces; the integration of blacks and women into the military forces of the United States. One was fairly successful (blacks) while the other (women) has proven to be destructive for morale and unit cohesion, as well as for US global standing in the world. While adding blacks to the US military by law was fairly successful, unknown numbers of blacks have been harassed by fellow service members, especially in the early years of the 1960s. In addition, several high-level incidents involving black US soldiers raping young Korean girls and other such incidents has shown that even though US blacks can still damage US foreign policy and military cohesion by their ghetto behavior. At the time, these rapes badly damaged US-South Korean relations and other such incidents are well documented.

Adding Women: Disaster
With the integration of women into the US armed forces, a HUGE disaster was recognized, one that spills over today into the DADT debate. The destruction addition of women into front-line units and command slots and the resulting serious problems has made the US military more reactioanry to changes enforced by Congress. Adding women has ended the career of hundreds of sailors, soldiers, and officers (like Tailgate) as well as destroyed military readiness in combat troops (fighting for sexual partners-women-in the tents of the First Gulf War), to leaving your buddies in the lurch by getting pregnant on purpose just to get out of the battlezone. Several extremely damaging events have also taken place in the US military due to promotion of women to positions they should not have had (Janis Karpinski, Lynndie England, and Megan Ambuhl). Problems with dismissing such incompetents from the service (and gay men in the future as well) are similar to getting rid of another "protected group" like the Arab US Army Major Nidal Hasan; an impossibility. The deaths of 31 people by Hasan can be directly blamed on the fear of even trying to get rid of people who are dangerous to their own fellow servicemen. During the whole "debate" of repealing the Clinton-era DADT policy was the question of "will it hurt the troops" when the real question should have been "will this help the US military fight better". Anyone who can yes to that question with a straight face is a bald face liar. Serious incidents within the US military today have proven over and over again that gays in positions of authority have used and abused their underlings, that fellow gay servicemen have encouraged sex between straight military personnel and themselves, and gay porn is rife with military officers raping or having sex with their subordinates. All you have to do is go to websites like Nifty.org to see such disgusting gay rape fantasies put into print for all to see. Also, entire books have been written on the "softening" of the US armed services after women were allowed to serve greater and greater rolls in the service (see "The Kinder Gentler Military" by Stephanie Gutmann).

The Purges Begin
Already the purge of the US military is beginning, with people who disagree on a moral or spiritual level being removed from service, from command slots they deserve, and other such punishments. These despicable tactics again serve only to undermine and destroy the US military's cohesion and combat readiness. Numerous other servicemen and women will also be eliminated using the new pro-gay policy. A US Arny officer, who formerly commanded a battalion-sized unit, has strongly held religious beliefs that homosexual behavior is morally wrong, and he thinks the military will be damaged severely if it implements the Obama administration's plan to allow homosexuals to serve openly. He said many of the men under his command share his views. See here for more.

The British Military
Trying to find more details on gays serving in the military can be hard, but I have a direct source: my ex-lover,a former British commando. He openly bragged that people in his unit knew he was having sex with his Captain, but known could say a word about it. Surely these sorts of "arrangements" encourage preferential treatment as well as again being destructive to morale. My ex was proud of the fact he could screw his officers and underlings, in fact he had no qualms about it. When I challenged him on it, he didn't care (typical of homosexuals).

Sad Quote
In preparing for this blog article I did some research on the web as well as my local library and found one of the saddest quotes I have ever read by a US psychiatric officer. He wrote:

I am a captain in the medical corps of the U.S. Navy, with 25 years active duty, and significant time assigned in Marine units. I have observed an interesting behavioral shift in communal showers that is very clearly generational. Older guys like myself, who grew up when homosexuals were firmly in the closet, tend to be very unself-conscious. When we finish our shower, we throw the curtain to one side, grab our towel, and begin to dry off. We step out buck naked into the center area to get our clothes off the bench, and begin dressing. If anyone is watching, we are generally unconscious of it and take no notice. Not so with the younger generation that is highly conscious of homosexuals because they have grown up being constantly confronted with the issue. When the younger generation finish a shower, the curtain is moved a few inches to the side, and an arm will snake out to grab the towel on the hook. The towel disappears back into the stall and the curtain closes. When toweling stops, the soldier/sailor/marine emerges with the towel wrapped around his waist. Invariably, the first article of clothing donned is the athletic shorts, which are pulled up under the towel, which is only removed when the shorts are in place. The younger guys are very conscious of the possibility that some queer is secretly checking them out and it makes them very nervous to potentially be the object of another guy’s sexual interest. Times have changed, and for the worse.

Destroying the Services
If the left-leaning liberals in Congress (the Democrats) wanted to damage the US armed forces, then allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military is a sure way of doing that, and here's why. Already, thousands of people in blogs and letters to Congress have stated they no longer consider it a privilege to serve in the US military now that gays have protected status in the services. Americans in the past have proudly joined an organization like the military for many reasons, pride in the nation and the branch of service being one of them. Such pride is now being destroyed by the repeal of DADT, for many reasons but the simple one is this: people do not believe in the policy of promoting homosexuality as a equal lifestyle. And they shouldn't have to. And they won't.

Other Testimonies About Gays in the Military
As a former military man, United States Navy, I can attest to the destruction of morale and unit stability of gays in the military. In late 1970s I was in boot camp in San Diego. One of the company commanders assigned to my drill company turned out to be a homosexual and was using his position of authority to commit sexual acts on the new recruits. Halfway through boot camp, this individual was relieved of duty, not only was this destructive to te company, multiple recruits were effected and even discharged over this. There is no telling how this incident continued to affect the Navy, the lives of the individuals involved, or the careers that were destroyed. The new recruits that were discharged were never able to fulfill their aspirations of service to their country.

During Infantry training one of the men in training with me was 17 years old and very small, about 5’2” tall. On a Sunday morning four recruits at the rifle range decided to rape this young Marine in a Quonset hut. There were four other Marines in the Quonset hut that witnessed the rape of this 17-year-old Marine and never stood up to protect him. The rapists were tried, convicted and sentenced to many years of hard labor in the Marine Corps brig, while the other four witnesses were discharged immediately for being “unfit for military duty.” All this is a matter of public record on file, it happened between Sept. and Oct. of 1970 at Camp Pendleton. The four rapist Marines were all homosexuals and that is exactly what is going to happen if “We the People” permit these lousy politicians to shove this crap down our throats. In the Democrats' malignant pursuit to acquire more votes to keep themselves in office they are throwing our armed services under the “lawn mower!”

I am a veteran of the U.S. Air Force of almost six years and I can tell you that I am definitely against allowing gays in the military. When I was in basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, our flight had a homosexual it that actually harassed us in the shower, gawking at us and saying "Oh yes." All of us guys hurried to get out of the shower to keep from being harassed by this pervert. What about our right to be safe from harassment? I have a son now and I cannot in good conscience recommend to him to join the military, nor could I encourage anyone else to do so as long as these perverts are being allowed in there, I would not want to be responsible for some poor kid being raped or molested after joining the military.

I am a retired USAF mustang major. The repeal of the DADT policy is not really about equality. There is NO right to serve in the U.S. military. This repeal is a diabolically calculated move. By inflicting homosexual policy and culture upon the conservative majority in the U.S. military, progressives hope to force those conservatives to either comply and accept the deviancy as normal behavior, or exit the military in droves. This forces the usually ultra-conservative culture of the military to radically change to a deviancy-sympathizing culture. It changes the entire demographics of the U.S. military from the inside out. By using the military as a test tube to incubate progressive worldview and Marxist philosophy within a previously conservative public body, the military not only is eliminated as an obstacle, but it becomes the ultimate poster child for promoting the end mission of the progressives: the complete social engineering of the U.S. population.

Random Thoughts

2010-11-29T06:12:00.000-08:00

China directed Google hacking: leaked US documents
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Nov 28, 2010

The United States believes that China's leadership has directed a hacking campaign into computers of Google and Western governments, according to US diplomatic files leaked Sunday.

The documents obtained by whistleblower site WikiLeaks revealed the intense and sometimes fraught diplomacy between the two Pacific powers on a range of issues -- particularly Iran and North Korea.

In one cable, the US embassy in Beijing said it learned from "a Chinese contact" that the country's Politburo had led years of hacking into computers of the United States, its allies and Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

The New York Times, which viewed the cable, said the embassy found that attacks against Google were "part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government."

Google announced in March that it would no longer follow the communist government's instructions to filter searches for sensitive material after attacks against the company and Gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents.

Hacking campaigns originating from China have been reported before, but US officials have stopped short of publicly accusing Beijing of orchestrating cyber warfare.

The thousands of leaked documents also recounted efforts by the United States to persuade China to rein in North Korea.

In one secret memo on the WikiLeaks website, the United States in 2008 instructed its embassies to press China and Central Asian nations to block a North Korean plane suspected of proliferating weapons to Iran.

In another cable a year earlier reported by Britain's Guardian newspaper, the United States asked Beijing to stop what it believed to be a missile shipment from North Korea to Iran transiting through China.

Beijing is considered the only country with real influence in reclusive North Korea.

In a meeting late last year, senior Chinese official Wang Jiarui is quoted as reiterating Beijing's call for stability on the Korean peninsula and urging the United States to reach out to the North by promising not to seek regime change.

Despite the lack of movement on North Korea, the documents gave an upbeat US assessment on China's position on Iran.

A cable on the WikiLeaks website said Wang praised US policy on Iran in a meeting with Williams Burns, the State Department number three, and said Tehran should not seek nuclear weapons.

In another cable, a Chinese official dismissed concerns that Beijing's standing in the Islamic world was hurt by its response to 2009 ethnic bloodshed in the Xinjiang region, whose indigenous Uighur population is mostly Muslim.

An official was quoted as saying that China had stepped up media outreach in the Middle East to prevent any backlash, including setting up an Arabic-language version of state-run China Central Television.

The cables show China venting anger at the United States for refusing to hand over 22 Uighurs originally held at the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The United States cleared the men of wrongdoing but feared they would face persecution in China.

Cables depicted US officials searching the world asking countries to take Guantanamo inmates, with Slovenia's leadership told that a meeting with US President Barack Obama was linked to its decision on taking a prisoner.

According to another document, the US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan last year confronted her Chinese counterpart on information that Beijing offered three billion dollars if the neighboring country shut the Manas air base, a key US conduit for the war in Afghanistan.

The Chinese ambassador, Zhang Yannian, "ridiculed the notion of such a deal, he did not deny it outright," US Ambassador Tatiana Gfoeller wrote.

"'It would take three dollars from every Chinese person' to pay for it," she quoted him as saying. "'If our people found out, there'd be a revolution.'"

The United States eventually renewed US rights to the air base after the United States ramped up compensation.

Chinese Oil Drilling off Cuba

Who Will Elect Lebanon's President? Not the Lebanese
November 11, 2007 1:26 AM

The selection of a new president by the Lebanese parliament has - again - been postponed. Jeha writes that for the average Lebanese, “the election drama is nothing but a fight between marionettes in which we have little say.” That’s life in a country stuck next door to “a Syrian regime threatened by our freedom, and an Iranian theocracy insulted by our secular ambitions.”

Something in Lebanon today reeks of the 70’s… And I’m not talking about disco.

I am talking about the time when we were all huddled in makeshift shelters, reading about the plight of baby seals in a western Press that was too busy to talk about us… Back then, no one was looking while Lebanon was burning, with Syria and Israel fanning the flames. When they looked, they “farmed us out” to the Syrians, to reward them for their “support” in the first Gulf War.

It did not matter to the “free world” that Syria sponsored a few terrorists, that it co-sponsored Hezbollah, or as I like to call them, Hezbo’, Iran’s local chapter of the Pasdaran. Nor did it matter that the outgunned Lebanese army resisted their onslaught, fought to the death, and even counterattacked…

But things are different today.

Yes, today, everyone is looking again. Less than 2 years after the Cedar Revolution, the Lebanese find themselves unable to meet to elect a president.

But today, 9/11 got the “free world” got a ( somewhat better) new set of specs, and even French and Americans agree who’s to blame; it is a Syrian regime threatened by our freedom, and an Iran theocracy insulted by our secular ambitions…

For now; we live with neighbours I would not wish on my worse enemy, and all their squabbles ultimately reflect on us…

To be sure, we Lebanese share our part of the blame… Many of Syria’s useful idiots use that to berate us, as some of the reasons for that are appearing today, after the Syrian occupation melted away, issues that were suppressed for all those years started to appear.

Many Lebanese recall the 60’s, when international economic experts were asked to evaluate the Lebanese economic miracle. After much study, they decided that they had no clue how it worked. But since it worked so well, better not change anything. Back then, our per-capita GDP was comparable to Israel’s. In 1990, after the civil war, it was down to less than a third. Today, after 15 years of Syrian occupation, it is down to less than a sixth…

Not all of it is due to our neighbours. Our “system” has a deadly weakness; in the 21st century, Lebanon is still operated like a city-state, with everything concentrated on the capital, Beirut. As a result, the country is run like a (short term) for-profit business by whoever controls Beirut. Because of this short-term emphasis, the people who run the show tend to be more like “deal makers” than real businessmen, and few who “produce” anything “real” can hope to make much headway. The government becomes the largest economic player, generating 30% to 35% of GDP; all those plum jobs can be a great source of power, with little or no accountability . When the late Rafik Hariri came along, he tried to reform while still under Syrian tutelage… Since he could only tamper with the “system” without addressing the root causes of the civil war, we now have a nice downtown Beirut, a bloated government bureaucracy, and the highest debt to GDP ratio in the world.

The result of all this is that, even in “Free Lebanon”, people still need to “hedge” during election time, to make sure they maintain access to the powers of patronage of the winner.

So, when more than 70% of the nation went to the streets on March 14th 2005, at the heyday of the Cedar Revolution, our anger was not only directed against Syrian oppression and terror, it was also directed against a corrupt system that allowed the gangsters of Damascus to rule the streets of Beirut.

The demonstration was also partly a reaction to the March 8th demo in support of Syria, when about 10% of the nation showed up, backed by 50,000 or so Syrians… by choosing to celebrate the anniversary of the Syrian regime in downtown Beirut, Nasrallah and his goons had though they would intimidate the silent majority, but they only galvanized us even more… We all knew the time was different, and we all understood the threat posed by an organized, well funded outfit such as Hezbo’.

In the shadows of the Syrian occupation, Hezbo’ had been able to use the Lebanese “system” to their advantage, and hijack the Lebanese Shiite community by a combination of coercion and patronage. By diverting Lebanese government resources to their parasitic mini-state, Hassan Nasrallah and his followers were able to make optimal use of Iran’s yearly influx of USD 300 – 500 Million, and capitalize on Lebanese ingenuity to build the ” best guerrilla force in the world”. So it is no wonder they forced Israel out in 2000. And it is no wonder they were able to see off an ill-conceived Israeli invasion in 2006.

But Hezbo’ is hindered by its own nature, and the fact remains that the party is a sectarian force, and for all its armaments, it remains a guerrilla.

For all its calls for worldwide revolution, Hezbo’ remains a sectarian party with limited sectarian appeal, unable to expand beyond its core in the Shiite community. And it cannot “grow by acquisition” to reach the Lebanese political centre, as any allies they gain from other communities will themselves lose support from within their own “side”.

For all its power, Hezbo’ cannot grow its parasitic canton into a state. As it consolidates its canton, it is only “fixing” its guerrilla forces in three isolated regions where they can be easily targeted, and whose lines of communications remain vulnerable to other militias. Those mountain passes are easy to close, and this tent city is dangerously isolated…

The party and its Syrian and Iranian patrons are fighting hard to maintain a status-quo that benefited well in the past. But their “conservative revolution” will not work; aside from being an oxymoron, they picked off too many enemies at once. They are not only terrorising the Lebanese, but they are endangering Arab and western Interests.

With all the “noise” surrounding us in Lebanon, I like to take a break away from the news feeds, to try to listen to the life of people… To most real people, the election drama is nothing but a fight of marionettes in which we have little say. We did not know if there will be an election on November 12th, we don’t know if we’ll have one on November 21st, and I do not think the pawns who rule is have any more clue.

Those who will decide are not among us in Lebanon. They are not even close by in Damascus. The Syrian regime may feel its cause is winning, with the US in the Iraqi quagmire, the Lebanese divided, and the French still too amateurish.

The Saudis, however, are another matter, especially now that larger US interests in the region are aligned with an increasingly assertive House of Saud. They now consider that Syria is “in the way” of complex interests , and prefer to address its Iranian patrons directly when they want Damascus to do something

So now we know who’s electing our President. We just do not know when.

Chinese Claims Around the World

China Targets US Carriers, Blacks Cause More Crimes

2010-08-06T02:50:00.000-07:00

Question: when a foreign nation starts deliberately targeting for destruction another nation's Navy, when exactly does that become a hostile act? When does it become an act of war? China is now openly targeting for destruction the United States Navy in an effort to control most of Asia. The USA had better wake up and realize that "the Dragon" really is a dragon and is looking to devour its neighbors, while annihilating any that stand in their way.

Chinese missile could shift Pacific power balance
By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer Eric Talmadge, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 52 mins ago

ABOARD THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON – Nothing projects U.S. global air and sea power more vividly than supercarriers. Bristling with fighter jets that can reach deep into even landlocked trouble zones, America's virtually invincible carrier fleet has long enforced its dominance of the high seas.

China may soon put an end to that.

U.S. naval planners are scrambling to deal with what analysts say is a game-changing weapon being developed by China — an unprecedented carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles).

Analysts say final testing of the missile could come as soon as the end of this year, though questions remain about how fast China will be able to perfect its accuracy to the level needed to threaten a moving carrier at sea.

The weapon, a version of which was displayed last year in a Chinese military parade, could revolutionize China's role in the Pacific balance of power, seriously weakening Washington's ability to intervene in any potential conflict over Taiwan or North Korea. It could also deny U.S. ships safe access to international waters near China's 11,200-mile (18,000-kilometer) -long coastline.

While a nuclear bomb could theoretically sink a carrier, assuming its user was willing to raise the stakes to atomic levels, the conventionally-armed Dong Feng 21D's uniqueness is in its ability to hit a powerfully defended moving target with pin-point precision.

The Chinese Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to the AP's request for a comment.

Funded by annual double-digit increases in the defense budget for almost every year of the past two decades, the Chinese navy has become Asia's largest and has expanded beyond its traditional mission of retaking Taiwan to push its sphere of influence deeper into the Pacific and protect vital maritime trade routes.

"The Navy has long had to fear carrier-killing capabilities," said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the nonpartisan, Washington-based Center for a New American Security. "The emerging Chinese antiship missile capability, and in particular the DF 21D, represents the first post-Cold War capability that is both potentially capable of stopping our naval power projection and deliberately designed for that purpose."

Setting the stage for a possible conflict, Beijing has grown increasingly vocal in its demands for the U.S. to stay away from the wide swaths of ocean — covering much of the Yellow, East and South China seas — where it claims exclusivity.

It strongly opposed plans to hold U.S.-South Korean war games in the Yellow Sea off the northeastern Chinese coast, saying the participation of the USS George Washington supercarrier, with its 1,092-foot (333-meter) flight deck and 6,250 personnel, would be a provocation because it put Beijing within striking range of U.S. F-18 warplanes.

The carrier instead took part in maneuvers held farther away in the Sea of Japan.

U.S. officials deny Chinese pressure kept it away, and say they will not be told by Beijing where they can operate.

"We reserve the right to exercise in international waters anywhere in the world," Rear Adm. Daniel Cloyd, who headed the U.S. side of the exercises, said aboard the carrier during the maneuvers, which ended last week.

But the new missile, if able to evade the defenses of a carrier and of the vessels sailing with it, could undermine that policy.

"China can reach out and hit the U.S. well before the U.S. can get close enough to the mainland to hit back," said Toshi Yoshihara, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College. He said U.S. ships have only twice been that vulnerable — against Japan in World War II and against Soviet bombers in the Cold War.

Carrier-killing missiles "could have an enduring psychological effect on U.S. policymakers," he e-mailed to The AP. "It underscores more broadly that the U.S. Navy no longer rules the waves as it has since the end of World War II. The stark reality is that sea control cannot be taken for granted anymore."

Yoshihara said the weapon is causing considerable consternation in Washington, though — with attention focused on land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — its implications haven't been widely discussed in public.

Analysts note that while much has been made of China's efforts to ready a carrier fleet of its own, it would likely take decades to catch U.S. carrier crews' level of expertise, training and experience.

But Beijing does not need to match the U.S. carrier for carrier. The Dong Feng 21D, smarter, and vastly cheaper, could successfully attack a U.S. carrier, or at least deter it from getting too close.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned of the threat in a speech last September at the Air Force Association Convention.

"When considering the military-modernization programs of countries like China, we should be concerned less with their potential ability to challenge the U.S. symmetrically — fighter to fighter or ship to ship — and more with their ability to disrupt our freedom of movement and narrow our strategic options," he said.

Gates said China's investments in cyber and anti-satellite warfare, anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, along with ballistic missiles, "could threaten America's primary way to project power" through its forward air bases and carrier strike groups.

The Pentagon has been worried for years about China getting an anti-ship ballistic missile. The Pentagon considers such a missile an "anti-access," weapon, meaning that it could deny others access to certain areas.

The Air Force's top surveillance and intelligence officer, Lt. Gen. David Deptula, told reporters this week that China's effort to increase anti-access capability is part of a worrisome trend.

He did not single out the DF 21D, but said: "While we might not fight the Chinese, we may end up in situations where we'll certainly be opposing the equipment that they build and sell around the world."

Questions remain over when — and if — China will perfect the technology; hitting a moving carrier is no mean feat, requiring state-of-the-art guidance systems, and some experts believe it will take China a decade or so to field a reliable threat. Others, however, say final tests of the missile could come in the next year or two.

Former Navy commander James Kraska, a professor of international law and sea power at the U.S. Naval War College, recently wrote a controversial article in the magazine Orbis outlining a hypothetical scenario set just five years from now in which a Deng Feng 21D missile with a penetrator warhead sinks the USS George Washington.

That would usher in a "new epoch of international order in which Beijing emerges to displace the United States."

While China's Defense Ministry never comments on new weapons before they become operational, the DF 21D — which would travel at 10 times the speed of sound and carry conventional payloads — has been much discussed by military buffs online.

A pseudonymous article posted on Xinhuanet, website of China's official news agency, imagines the U.S. dispatching the George Washington to aid Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

The Chinese would respond with three salvos of DF 21D, the first of which would pierce the hull, start fires and shut down flight operations, the article says. The second would knock out its engines and be accompanied by air attacks. The third wave, the article says, would "send the George Washington to the bottom of the ocean."

Note from author: the US Navy has decided that the huge potential loss of life by sinking an entire aircraft carrier (and the resulting devastating backlash at home) should be prevented by making smaller ships that have fewer crews, say 50 people on board total. Losing 50 people compared to 5,000 is what the brass over at Navy HQ thinks is the appropriate response to the new "carrier killer missiles" (its not, making underwater carriers that are impossible to find is the right response). These new small ships will be based on the picture of the vessel shown below:

Suffer These Crimes in Oakland? Don't Call the Cops
Dozens of layoffs effective at midnight, barring last minute deal
By LORI PREUITT and KRIS SANCHEZ

Oakland's police chief is making some dire claims about what his force will and will not respond to if layoffs go as planned.

Chief Anthony Batts listed exactly 44 situations that his officers will no longer respond to and they include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism. He says if you live and Oakland and one of the above happens to you, you need to let police know on-line.

Some 80 officers were to be let go at midnight last night if a last-minute deal was not reached. That's about ten percent of the work force.

"I came here to build an organization, not downsize one," said Batts, who was given the top job in October.

That deadline has been extended to 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Here's a partial list:

* burglary
* theft
* embezzlement
* grand theft
* grand theft:dog
* identity theft
* false information to peace officer
* required to register as sex or arson offender
* dump waste or offensive matter
* discard appliance with lock
* loud music
* possess forged notes
* pass fictitious check
* obtain money by false voucher
* fraudulent use of access cards
* stolen license plate
* embezzlement by an employee (over $ 400)
* extortion
* attempted extortion
* false personification of other
* injure telephone/ power line
* interfere with power line
* unauthorized cable tv connection
* vandalism
* administer/expose poison to another's

Negotiations are going on at Oakland City Hall in the mayor's office.

Batts said the 80 officers slated to be laid off - mostly new officers - are "pretty sad and pretty depressed," and those feelings are shared by the Police Department as a whole.

The Oakland City Council voted June 25 to eliminate the positions to help close the city's $32.5 million funding gap. According to the city of Oakland, each of the 776 police officers currently employed at OPD costs around $188,000 per year. Most of the officers who will be affected by the layoffs were on the streets of Oakland when Johannes Mehserle's involuntary manslaughter conviction caused riots last Thursday.

The sticking point in negotiations appears to be job security. The city council asked OPD officers to pay nine percent of their salary toward their pensions, which would save the city about $7.8 million toward a multi-million dollar deficit. The police union agreed, as long as the city could promise no layoffs for three years. No dice, says city council president Jane Brunner.

"We wish we could offer them a three-year no layoff protection we just can't financially. It would be irresponsible of us," Brunner said. The city agreed to a one-year moratorium on layoffs, but it is not enough for the union.

The problem is money. In the last five years, the police budget -- along with the fire department budget -- have amount to 75 percent of the general fund. After years of largely sparing those departments the budget ax, now it appears there are few other places to cut.

These are the last hours of negotiation and Brunner is hopeful that the city and police will find some sort middle ground.

"It's been very good conversation and not a whole lot of grandstanding." Brunner said. "There's actually real conversations. Each side understands the problem," she said.

Layoffs to gut East St. Louis police force
BY NICHOLAS J.C. PISTOR

EAST ST. LOUIS • The Rev. Joseph Tracy said he’s tired of going to funerals. And now, he suspects he’ll be going to more of them.

"It’s open field day now," said Tracy, the pastor of Straightway Baptist Church here. "The criminals are going to run wild."

Gang activity. Drug dealing. Cold-blooded killing. Tracy worries that a decision to shrink the police force by almost 30 percent will bring more of everything.

The pastor voiced his concern on Friday at a raucous special City Council meeting at which East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks announced that the city will layoff 37 employees, including 19 of its 62 police officers, 11 firefighters, four public works employees, and three administrators. The layoffs take effect on Sunday.

Parks said the weak economy has robbed the city of badly need money. For example, revenue from the Casino Queen was $900,000 below budget expectations last year. There are no signs of improvement, Parks said.

"I want our citizens to know we have some of the bravest police officers and firefighters in the country," Parks said. "But we don’t have the money to pay them. We have to have fiscal responsibility."

City officials wanted police and fire unions to accept a furlough program that would have required employees to take two unpaid days in each twice monthly pay period. If accepted, emergency responders would have seen a pay cut of about 20 percent for the rest of the year.

Parks said the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement. On Friday, he stared at a standing-room only crowd and told his emergency response chiefs words they didn’t want to hear: "Tell your workers to start packing their things."

The news spurred shouts from the crowd.

"The blood is on your hands," yelled Michael Hubbard, an East St. Louis police officer.

Hubbard said he will be the lone patrolman for East St. Louis’ midnight shift when the cuts go into effect.

"This is devastating," Hubbard told a reporter after the meeting.

East St. Louis has been crippled by crime and poverty for decades. Police officials say the cuts will mean fewer officers for patrols, investigations and juvenile cases. Fire officials said the region should be upset because the department will have fewer people at the ready to fight fires on some of the region’s major highways and bridges.

The police already rely on other agencies to handle some of the heavy case load. For example, the Illinois State Police routinely work on the city’s homicide investigations.

Capt. Steve Johnson, of the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department, said his agency has no plans for stepping up work in East St. Louis.

"We don’t do calls for service in East St. Louis," Johnson said. "But, if we’re called for assistance, we will help when we can."

Worries about East St. Louis’ crime rate got little sympathy from Councilman Roy Mosley, who gave a 10-minute speech on Friday blasting the city’s police officers.

"We don’t have the money," Mosley said. "You lay off when you don’t have the money. The money’s gone."

Mosley complained that police officers take patrol cars home, park them in other jurisdictions, and misuse the city’s gasoline.

"I’m only telling the truth," he shouted.

The crowd jeered.

"You can see how disrespectful they are," Mosley said while pointing at the police officers. "You see what they’re doing to me right now."

Richard V. Stewart Jr., an attorney for the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police union, said Mosley’s claims are untrue.

Stewart said the words amounted to nothing more than "political grandstanding."

"Unfortunately, this is what I expected," Stewart said.

The union plans to fight the layoffs and work to get the jobs back.

Bad blood already exists between the two sides. An arbitrator has ruled that the city improperly imposed unpaid furlough days on its employees earlier this year. The city was ordered to pay $500,000 back in lost wages.

On Friday, the city approved a proposal to defer bond payments until next year in order to free up $500,000.

"Next year is a different situation," Mayor Parks said.

Note from author: these articles are using PC tactics, not mentioning that the vast majority of East St. Louis residents (81%) are black. When a nation reaches a point where it can no longer tell itself the truth because it may hurt someones feelings, that nation is doomed.

What if America fragmented?

2010-07-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

by Paul Starobin - Jul. 3, 2010 06:07 PM
The Arizona Republic

Remember that classic Beatles riff of the 1960s: "You say you want a revolution?" Imagine this instead: a devolution. Picture an America that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy but, in freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of the society.

There might be an austere Republic of New England, with a natural strength in higher education and technology; a Caribbean-flavored city-state Republic of Greater Miami, with an anchor in the Latin American economy; and maybe even a Republic of Las Vegas, with unfettered license to pursue its ambitions as a global gambling, entertainment and conventioneer destination.

California? America's broke, ill-governed and way-too-big nationlike state might be saved, truly saved, not by an emergency federal bailout but by a merciful carve-up into a trio of republics that would rely on their own ingenuity in making their connections to the wider world.

Arizona? Its resolute determination to chart its own course on immigration policy - a matter usually left to Washington - suggests a rebellious streak that could serve it well in a new life as an independent Republic or as part of a Southwest federation with neighbors Utah, Colorado and New Mexico.

And while we're at it, let's make this project binational - economic logic suggests a natural multilingual combination between greater San Diego and Mexico's Baja California Norte, and, to the Pacific north, between Seattle and Vancouver in a megaregion already dubbed "Cascadia" by economic cartographers.

Devolved America is a vision faithful both to certain postindustrial realities as well as to the pluralistic heart of the American political tradition - a tradition that has been betrayed by the creeping centralization of power in Washington over the decades but may yet reassert itself as an animating spirit for the future.

Consider this proposition: America of the 21st century, propelled by currents of modernity that tend to favor the little over the big, may trace a long circle back to the original small-government ideas of the American experiment. The present-day American Goliath may turn out to be a freak of a waning age of politics and economics as conducted on a supersize scale - too large to make any rational sense in an emerging age of personal empowerment that harks back to the era of the yeoman farmer of America's early days. The society may find blessed new life, as paradoxical as this may sound, in a return to a smaller form.

This perspective may seem especially fanciful at a time when the political tides all seem to be running in the opposite direction. In the midst of economic troubles, an aggrandizing Washington is gathering even more power in its hands. Not surprisingly, a lot of folks in the land of Thomas Jefferson are taking a stand against an approach that stands to make an indebted citizenry yet more dependent on an already immense federal power. The backlash, already under way, is a prime stimulus for a neo-secessionist movement, the most extreme manifestation of a broader push for some form of devolution.

Cries for secession
In April 2009, at an anti-tax "tea party" held in Austin, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas saw his speech interrupted by cries of "secede!" The governor did not sound inclined to disagree.

"Texas is a unique place," he later told reporters attending the rally. "When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that." The Texas Nationalist Movement claims that over 250,000 Texans have signed a form affirming the organization's goal of a Texas nation.

Secessionist feelings also percolate in Alaska, where Todd Palin, husband of former Gov. Sarah Palin, was once a registered member of the Alaska Independence Party. But it is not as if the right has a lock on this issue: Vermont, the seat of one of the most vibrant secessionist movements, is among the country's most politically liberal places. Vermonters are especially upset about imperial America's foreign excursions in hazardous places like Iraq.

The philosophical tie that binds these otherwise odd bedfellows is belief in the birthright of Americans to run their own affairs, free from centralized control. Their hallowed parchment is Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, on behalf of the original 13 British Colonies, penned in 1776, 11 years before the framers of the Constitution gathered for their convention in Philadelphia.

"The right of secession precedes the Constitution - the United States was born out of secession," Daniel Miller, leader of the Texas Nationalist Movement, told me. Take that, King Obama.

Today's devolutionists, of all stripes, can trace their pedigree to the "anti-federalists" who opposed the compact that came out of Philadelphia as a bad bargain that gave too much power to the center at the expense of the limbs. Some of America's most vigorous and learned minds were in the anti-federalist camp; their ranks included Virginia's Patrick Henry, of "give me liberty or give me death" renown. The sainted Jefferson, who was serving as a diplomat in Paris during the convention, is these days claimed by secessionists as a kindred anti-federal spirit, even if he did go on to serve two terms as president.

The anti-federalists lost their battle, but history, in certain respects, has redeemed their vision, for they anticipated how many Americans have come to feel about their nation's seat of federal power.

"This city, and the government of it, must indubitably take their tone from the character of the men, who from the nature of its situation and institution, must collect there," the anti-federalist pamphleteer known only as the Federal Farmer wrote. "If we expect it will have any sincere attachments to simple and frugal republicanism, to that liberty and mild government, which is dear to the laborious part of a free people, we most assuredly deceive ourselves."

In the mid-19th century, the anti-federalist impulse took a dark turn, attaching itself to the cause of the Confederacy, which was formed by the unilateral secession of 11 Southern states over the bloody issue of slavery. Abraham Lincoln had no choice but to go to war to preserve the Union - and ever since, anti-federalism, in almost any guise, has had to defend itself from the charge of being anti-modern and, indeed, retrograde.

Turning from the big
But nearly a century and a half has passed since Johnny Rebel whooped for the last time. Slavery is dead, and so too is the large-scale industrial economy that the Yankees embraced as their path to victory over the South and to global prosperity. The model lasted a long time, to be sure, surviving all the way through the New Deal and the first several decades of the post-World War II era, coming a cropper at the tail end of the 1960s, just as the economist John Kenneth Galbraith was holding out "The New Industrial State," the master-planned economy, as a seemingly permanent condition of modern life.

Not quite. In a globalized economy transformed by technological innovations hatched by happily unguided entrepreneurs, history seems to be driving one nail after another into the coffin of the big, which is why the Obama planners and their ilk, even if they now ride high, may be doomed to fail. No one anymore expects the best ideas to come from the biggest actors in the economy, so should anyone expect the best thinking to be done by the whales of the political world?

A notable prophet for a coming age of smallness was the diplomat and historian George Kennan, a steward of the American Century with an uncanny ability to see past the seemingly frozen geopolitical arrangements of the day. Kennan always believed that Soviet power would "run its course," as he predicted back in 1951, just as the Cold War was getting under way, and again shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed, he suggested that a similar fate might await the United States.

America has become a "monster country," afflicted by a swollen bureaucracy and "the hubris of inordinate size," Kennan wrote in his 1993 book, "Around the Cragged Hill: A Personal and Political Philosophy." Things might work better, he suggested, if the nation was "decentralized into something like a dozen constituent republics, absorbing not only the powers of the existing states but a considerable part of those of the present federal establishment."

Kennan's genius was to foresee that matters might take on an organic, a bottom-up, life of their own, especially in a society as dynamic and as creative as America. His spirit, the spirit of an anti-federalist modernist, can be glimpsed in an intriguing "megaregion" initiative encompassing greater San Diego County, next-door Imperial County and, to the immediate south of the U.S. border, Baja California Norte.

Elected officials representing all three participating areas recently unveiled "Cali Baja, a Bi-National Mega-Region," as the "international marketing brand" for the project. The idea is to create a global economic powerhouse by combining San Diego's proven abilities in scientific research and development with Imperial County's abundance of inexpensive land and availability of water rights and Baja Norte's manufacturing base, low labor costs and ability to supply the San Diego area with electricity during peak-use terms. Bilingualism, too, is a key-with the aim for all children on both sides of the border to be fluent in both English and Spanish.

The project director is Christina Luhn, a Kansas native, historian and former staffer on the National Security Council in Ronald Reagan's White House in the mid-1980s. Contemporary America as a unit of governance may be too big - even the perpetually troubled state of California may be too big, she told me, by way of saying that the political and economic future may belong to the megaregions of the planet. Her conviction is that large systems tend not to endure, "they break apart, there's chaos, and at some point, new things form," she said.

A romantic flavor
The notion that small is better and even inevitable no doubt has some flavor of romance - even amounting to a kind of modern secular faith, girded by a raft of multidisciplinary literature that may or may not be relevant. Luhn takes her philosophical cue not only from Kennan but also from the science writer and physicist M. Mitchell Waldrop, author of "Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos."

Even for the hard-edged secessionist crowd, with their rapt attentiveness to America's roots, popular texts in the future-trend genre mingle in their minds with the yellowed scrolls of the anti-federalists.

"The cornerstone of my thought," Daniel Miller of the Texas Nationalist Movement told me, is John Naisbitt's 1995 best seller, "Global Paradox," which celebrates the entrepreneurial ethos in positing that "the bigger the world economy, the more powerful its smallest players."

More convincingly, the proposition that small trumps big is passing tests in real-life political and economic laboratories. For example, the U.S. ranked eighth in a survey of global-innovation leadership released in March 2009 by the Boston Consulting Group and the National Association of Manufacturers - with the top rankings dominated by small countries led by the city-state republic of Singapore. The Thunderbird School of Global Management, based in Glendale, has called Singapore "the most future-oriented country in the world." Historians can point to the spectacularly inventive city-states of Renaissance Italy as an example of the small truly making the beautiful.

How, though, to get from big to small? Secessionists such as Texas' Miller pledge a commitment to peaceful methods. History suggests skepticism on this score: Even the American republic was born in a violent revolution. These days, Russian professor Igor Panarin, a former KGB analyst, has snagged publicity with his dystopian prediction of civil strife in a dismembered America whose jagged parts fall prey to foreign powers including Canada, Mexico and, in the case of Alaska, Russia, naturally.

Still, the precedent for any breakup of today's America is not necessarily the one set by the musket-bearing colonists' demanded departure from the British crown in the late 18th century or by the crisis-ridden dissolution of the U.S.S.R. at the end of the 20th century. Every empire, every too-big thing, fragments or shrinks according to its own unique character and to the age of history to which it belongs.

The most hopeful prospect for the U.S., should the decentralization impulse prove irresistible, is for Americans to draw on their natural inventiveness and democratic tradition by patenting a formula for getting the job done in a gradual and cooperative way. In so doing, geopolitical history, and perhaps even a path for others, might be made, for the problem of bigness vexes political leviathans everywhere.

In India, with its 1.2 billion people, there is an active discussion of whether things might work better if the nation-state was chopped up into 10 or so large city-states with broad writs of autonomy from New Delhi. Devolution may likewise be the future for the European continent - think Catalonia - and for the British Isles. Scotland, a leading source of Enlightenment ideas for America's Founding Fathers, now has its own flourishing independence movement. Even China, held together by an aging autocracy, may not be able to resist the drift towards the smaller.

So, why not America as the global leader of a devolution? America's return to its origins - to its type - could turn out to be an act of creative political destruction, with "we the people" the better for it.

Paul Starobin is the author of the newly published "Five Roads to the Future: Power in the Next Global Age" (Penguin) and a staff correspondent for the National Journal and a contributing editor to the Atlantic.

Random People

2010-04-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

Remember this kid--well your looking at your grandchildren if you sit on your ass and don't speak up. This Obama regime loves this kind of UNITY!!!! If you don't stand up to your so called friends and your co-workers and neighbors, well this will be their future!! GOT IT!!!!!!!

=====================================

Elian Gonzalez shown at Cuba youth meeting
Apr 5 04:55 PM US/Eastern

HAVANA (AP) - Cuba has released photos of one-time exile cause celebre Elian Gonzalez wearing an olive-green military school uniform and attending a Young Communist Union congress.

Gonzalez, now 16 with closely cropped black hair, is shown serious-faced with fellow youth delegates during last weekend's congress at a sprawling and drab convention center in western Havana. The images were posted Monday on Cuban government Web sites, then widely picked up by electronic, state-controlled media.

When he was 5, Elian was found floating off the coast of Florida in an inner tube after his mother and others fleeing Cuba drowned trying to reach the U.S. Elian's father, who was separated from his mother, had remained in Cuba.

U.S. immigration officials ruled the boy should return to Cuba over the objections of his Miami relatives and other Cuban exiles, creating a national furor that caused even presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore to weigh in on the matter.

His relatives refused to give him up. Federal agents raided the Little Havana home of his uncle with guns drawn 10 years ago this month and seized the boy from a closet to return him to his father.

Elian was celebrated as a hero in Cuba upon his return and his father, restaurant employee Juan Miguel Gonzalez, was elected to parliament—a seat he retains today.

Cuba usually marks Gonzalez's birthday every Dec. 7 with parades and other local events, but such activities are not open to foreign reporters.

Gonzalez formally joined the Young Communist Union in 2008, making headlines across Cuba.

The green uniform with red shoulder patches he is seen wearing is common among island military academies. There is a military school in the city of Matanzas, near the boy's hometown of Cardenas, but it was unclear where he is attending school. Reports in state media provided no details.

"Young Elian Gonzalez defends his revolution in the youth congress," read the headline over Monday's photo posted on Cuba Debate, the same Web site where Fidel Castro has posted his regular essays since ceding power to his younger brother, Raul, for health reasons in 2006.

Revolution is what Cubans call the rebellion that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista and brought Castro to power on New Year's Day 1959.

Elian and his father are closely watched by state authorities, who restrict their contact with the international press.

Elian Gonzalez holds a Cuban flag during the UJC, Union of Young Communists, congress in Havana Sunday April 4, 2010. Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of an international custody battle 10 years ago in April 2000, attended Cuba's Young Communist Union wearing an olive green military school uniform.(AP Photo/Ismael Francisco, Prensa Latina)

Barak Hussein Obama from Kenya
Yes, his wife really says his home country is Kenya. See the video here.

Ohio Christian convert fights to stay in US
Apr 5 01:50 PM US/Eastern
By MATT LEINGANG
Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A teenage girl who converted to Christianity and ran away from home is being blocked by her Muslim parents from fighting the possibility of deportation, her attorney told a judge Monday in an ongoing custody dispute.

Rifqa Bary, 17, who fled home last year and stayed with a Florida minister whom she met on Facebook, is an illegal immigrant and does not want to be returned to her native Sri Lanka because she fears being harmed or killed by Muslim extremists. More here. She doesn't want to be killed! Let her stay in the USA!!! Pray for Rifqa Bary!

Obamanites get violent in support of the agenda
Last Saturday, a brick bearing the message "stop the right wing" smashed through the window of the Republican Party headquarters in Marion, Ohio. An Obama campaign contributor was arrested last week after threatening to kill Rep. Cantor and his wife because they are Jews. The registered voter in the "Christian militia" arrests turns out to be a Democrat.

Fill in your own incident – the real dangerous political violence in America is coming from the Obamanite left.

Be warned. The Obama regime considers opposition to its long march to "transform America" illegitimate and a fair target for government retaliation and violent retribution. More here.

NAFTA, Tea Party, and the John Birch Society

2010-03-12T00:16:00.000-08:00

Bill requires U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA
'Proponents have had more than enough time to make this work – it didn't'
Posted: March 12, 2010
12:45 am Eastern
By Chelsea Schilling
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

A coalition of 27 lawmakers from across the political spectrum is sponsoring a bill to withdraw the U.S. from the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, in as little as six months. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., has introduced HR 4759, "To provide for the withdrawal of the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement."

"NAFTA and similar free trade agreements have resulted in a 29 percent decline in U.S. manufacturing employment since 1993," Taylor's office said in a statement. "NAFTA discourages investments in U.S. manufacturing facilities and accelerates the erosion of our industrial base."

Taylor called the loss of manufacturing jobs a matter of national defense He pointed out that the U.S. had a trade surplus of $1.7 billion with Mexico in 1993, prior to its entry into NAFTA – and that number turned into a deficit that peaked at $75 billion in 2007 and dropped to $47 billion by 2009. Additionally, his office said the trade deficit with Canada in 1993 was $11 billion prior to NAFTA, swelling to $78 billion and dropping back to $20 billion with the decline of the economy in 2009.

More HERE.

Weak Tea or Strong Tea?
By Lee Harris Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Too many of those currently ‘analyzing’ the Tea Party movement seem to have no genuine interest in grappling with its potential historical significance.

When reading articles that aim at understanding the Tea Party movement, I am reminded of the ancient fable of the elephant and the blind men. Unable to see the whole elephant at a glance, each of the blind men drew his conclusions about the nature of the elephant by laying his hands on one of the elephant’s parts. The one who seizes the tail of the elephant says that the animal is like a rope. The one who puts his arms around the leg says that the elephant is like a tree trunk. The one who takes hold of the ears thinks he is handling a large fan, and so on.

When a political, religious, or cultural movement is first stirring, those who try to forecast its future development are in the same position as the blind men in the parable: they seize one feature of the movement and attempt to deduce its ultimate historical significance from this one feature alone.

More HERE

The John Birch Society Was Right
You know, years ago my father and mother became involved with the John Birch Society. As free thinkers that grew up in the Hippie era, they both discovered Ayn Rand and the JBS, two wonderful happenstances that changed their thinking and our family. When my mom told us growing up how evil the United Nations was, I believed her since she was my mom. When I got older however I saw he interest in the JBS as something oddball and out of step with the rest of society, a fringe organization that had little power or influence but were quite verbal. Looking back today, however, I really regret not listening to my mom and dad about the evils that this world is now ramming down our throat. From globalization to massive overspending and suborning our sovereign rights as a nation and citizens to the world government, the John Birch Society was right, as seen from this prophetic video from 1958: Click HERE

POINTS OF NOTE

In traded goods alone, we ran up $6.2 trillion in deficits – $3.8 trillion of that in manufactured goods.

Things that we once made in America – indeed, we made everything – we now buy from abroad with money that we borrow from abroad.

China accounts for 83 percent of the U.S. global trade deficit in manufactures and 84 percent of our global trade deficit in electronics and machinery.

Over the last decade, our total trade deficit with China in manufactured goods was $1.75 trillion, which explains why China, its cash reserves approaching $3 trillion, holds the mortgage on America.

This week came a report that Detroit, forge and furnace of the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II, is considering razing a fourth of the city and turning it into farm and pastureland. Did the $1.2 trillion trade deficit we ran in autos and parts last decade help kill Detroit?

New Posts

2010-03-05T21:39:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, I will be posting more often now that my computer is back up and running. Best wishes, Damon

The Obama Agenda

2010-02-04T10:54:00.000-08:00

Happy New Years

2010-01-02T01:21:00.001-08:00

To all my readers, Merry Christmas and Happy New Years. May 2010 be a heck of a lot better than 2009, and let's boot out ALL the Democrats in the elections this Fall. Damon

Who The Hell Is Winning This War?
Well, major news organizations are now calling the Mexican military's counter-cartel operations in northern Mexico a “surge.” It is accurate to say that the number of reported Mexican Army operations in northern Mexico is increasing. That does not mean, however, that the actual number of operations run by the military has gone up, rather, the number getting ink and electrons in Mexican and U.S. news outlets has jumped. The government and media reports all acknowledged that the big fight continues to be for Cuidad Juarez (Chihuahua state), but there are reports of operations by the military and national police all along the Mexico-Texas border. An example of this is the December 5, 2009 reports on the army action in the town of Nuevo Progreso (Tamaulipas state). It turns out some of the reports came from tourists who heard the gunfire. The Cartel War is now entering its fourth year and perhaps the Calderon government has decided to mark the anniversary with an offensive (a “surge,” which is a term American media understand). The government has been talking about the success of its “constant pressure” strategy on the cartels. Many critics call that hogwash and say the cartels are getting stronger. If the critics are correct, then more fights may be occurring because the cartels think they can win engagements with the military and they are in the process of proving it. The government's “pressurization” strategy is multi-pronged, but it includes “eroding” the power of cartel leaders and going after their financial assets. The government has racked up some major convictions and a number of cartel leaders have been captured or killed-- and that is erosion of a definite sort. That suggests another scenario: some of the cartels, instead of being stronger, are getting more desperate. They have decided they have to come out and fight. That means more engagements with the military, which is something the military wants.

Mexican media sources estimate 4,000 people have been murdered in drug gang-related violence in Ciudad Juraez (across the Rio Grande from El Paso) and its surrounding area during 2009. Official figures place the number murdered around 2600.

A journalist from the town of Tulum (Quintana Roo state, southeastern Mexico) was murdered by a gunman on a motorcycle. The murdered man, Jose Alberto Velazquez Lopez, owned a newspaper in Tulum. He had recently accused the local mayor, Marciano Dzul Caamal, of corruption. Velazquez and Dzul are described as “sworn enemies.” Media lobbyists have asked the Mexican government to investigate.

Drug cartel gunmen attacked the family of a Mexican Marine who was killed in the Navy's raid that killed drug kingpin Arturo Beltran Leyva. The government called the murders an act of reprisal. The mother of the dead marine, two siblings, and an aunt were killed, in their home in Tabasco state, by the cartelista hit men. A media report said that the gunmen were likely members of Los Zetas. Some government critics now say that releasing the names of military members and police officers killed in battles with drug gangs is a mistake.

Mexican Marines have also killed notorious drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva (nicknamed “The Beard”) when they raided an apartment in Cuernavaca (south of Mexico City). Five of Beltran Leyva's bodyguards also died in what Mexican media described as a “dramatic shoot-out” in the apartment and in the streets of the town. Three marines were wounded by grenade fragments. One marine later died. The Beltran Leyva cartel split from the Sinaloa cartel. It is closely aligned with Los Zetas. Beltran Leyva himself had been dealing drugs since the 1980s. Mexico's Marine force (Infanteria de Marina) are sometimes called Mexican Naval Infantry. The Marines are part of the Mexican Navy. The Marines are a select force trained for amphibious operations, port security, reconnaissance, and crisis response. Crisis response includes performing security and emergency functions in natural disasters (like hurricanes). Mexico's Marines are a very professional outfit. Like U.S. Marines, they have a high esprit de corps.

The U.S. is going after “kingpin” businesses. The U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had blacklisted three men who it accused of providing material and financial support for the Sinaloa cartel. Treasury can now freeze the assets of the men involved and can exclude them from doing business in the U.S..

The government said Gulf cartel gunmen (likely members of Los Zetas) “dumped” six severed heads in a town in Durango state. The heads were those of a state prosecuting attorney and five policemen. The government said it believes the six men were killed as an “act of revenge.” The Mexican Army killed ten Gulf cartel gang members in the area earlier this month.

The Calderon government proposed that future presidential elections, where no candidate receives over fifty percent of the vote, be decided in a run-off election. Several recent elections have been decided by a percentage point (or less) between two candidates who both collected around 35 percent of the vote in a three-way race. The run-off idea has merit, since it would give the new president a definite mandate. The government reform proposal also backed citizen ballot initiatives.

The Return of the Russian Bear
After a devastating economic crisis Russia seemed to be changing its ways. But an unexpected rebound in export prices has eased the pressure. As the boom gains strength, memories of tough times are fading fast. So are the reforms. That was the story in 2000. Then Russia rebounded spectacularly from the 1998 financial crash. It’s also the story for 2010. Russia is poised for economic recovery, but not a particularly healthy one. The country still depends too much on commodity exports. When prices fell, Russia’s GDP slumped – by an estimated 7.5 percent in 2009. But with prices up, the government spending and foreign capital coming into the country, 5 percent growth is possible in 2010.

Russia has a few pluses. Its financial system is less indebted than that of more developed peers. Strong neighboring Asian economies are big markets. And the latest crisis has spurred some reforms, including a revival of the moribund privatization program and a re-energized a bid to join the World Trade Organization. A new nuclear weapons treaty with the United States will be welcomed around the world.

But the reform drive is largely superficial. Indeed, there is less push than a decade ago. Vladimir Putin, now prime minister, has become more of an obstacle than a change-agent. The fate of fallen oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky is an ominous example. His second trial, which should end in the spring, will probably extend his prison sentence by many years, and further tarnish the reputation of the country’s legal system.

President Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s protege, seems to have the desire to do more, but as yet he lacks the necessary clout. If he does get more authority, the result could be a paralyzing fight with Putin, rather than big changes. Investors may be willing to overlook the Russian economy’s structural woes, but they shouldn’t forget the country has had a crisis almost every five years. Watch out for 2013.

Why China Really Wants A Big Navy
The growth of the Chinese navy, seen from the Chinese point of view, is the result of China's three decades of economic growth and modernization. This economic growth depends on massive imports of raw materials, particularly oil and ores, especially iron ore. While China's economy could continue to grow without its massive exports, that economy would collapse without the imports. Thus China has gone from being classic "Continental Power" (that was not dependent on seaborne commerce), to a maritime power, that must maintain access to oceanic supply routes. Thus China needs a navy to help preserve that access.

Russia, the other great Eurasian continental power, is still one. Russia produces its own oil, and can get anything else it needs via land routes in Eurasia. Thus Russia is not overly concerned that its navy is shrinking to the size of coast guard. China, however, has to be particularly concerned with the sea routes to distant Persian Gulf and Africa. Australia is closer, but still a long sea distance away. It's not that China wants to fight a naval war, but it does want a strong enough navy to prevent any smaller, rogue, nation from interfering with Chinese shipping. For example, China's contribution to the anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden is a big deal in China. For once, the Chinese Navy is able to reach a long distance, and protect Chinese interests.

In particular, China has to worry about the Straits of Malacca (the narrow seaway providing the quickest passage between the Pacific and Indian oceans). Some 20 percent of all world trade moves through these straits. Sea traffic here is vulnerable to naval mines and sinking large ships in shallower channels. This would disrupt some traffic. Near total shutdown of the straits would cause economic disruption worldwide, and especially in China. Shipping costs would go up and there would be lots of shipping delays. Ultimate economic costs would run into the hundreds of billion dollars. China needs to stay on good terms with Singapore (the island city, populated largely by ethnic Chinese, right on the straits), and have a naval force capable to protecting the straits from any threat.

Then there is the Indian Ocean. India takes the name seriously, and considers itself the guardian of the sea routes through this vast area. This includes most of the oil coming out of the Persian Gulf (where most of the world's known oil reserves are). India needs access to that oil, as well as to African resources. India is not receptive to seeing the Chinese Navy operating nearby, but the Chinese feel they have to show up, to prepare for any contingency. From China's perspective, the U.S. Navy is not the big threat, unless the Americans ally themselves with India, or anyone else trying to cut China's maritime supply lines.

An Obama Tour

Random Stuff from My Mind

2009-12-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

The Healthcare Reform Debacle

House Healthcare Reform Bill
Cost:	$1.2 Trillion
Pages:	1990+
Height:	9.95+ inches
Weight:	10.4+ lbs
Trees Killed:	313+
Cost Per Page:	$530,150,753.77
Tax Increases:	$600 Billion

Provisions of House Healthcare Reform Bill

Does not include the $200+ Billion "doc fix" provision so the real cost of the bill is far higher than the advertised amount
A government run insurance plan
Additional taxes on some existing insurance plans
$20 Billion in new taxes on medical device makers
At least $80 Billion in new taxes on pharmaceutical companies
Public funding for abortion
Medicare end-of-life planning provision (a.k.a. Death Panels)
Imposes a 2.5% tax on anyone who does not purchase an "approved" insurance plan
Imposes an 8% tax on companies that do not provide health insurance for employees
New regulations on vending machines

Christians are the new Negro
Posted: December 10, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
By Kenneth L. Hutcherson
© 2009

I did not become a Christian so I would have to fight for my constitutional freedoms all over again.

Growing up in Alabama being black, knowing how that felt and the way I was treated in an all-white world of power and control, I had to fight for equal rights under the Constitution. How ironic now as a Christian to have those same thoughts and feelings again and to have to try and wrestle control of my constitutional rights from the secular community.

Many reading this may not understand where I came up with this concept of calling Christians "the new Negro."

The reason is because there are undeniable similarities. Jim Crow laws were passed to keep me from having my constitutional rights and my rights under the Declaration of Independence of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even though the Constitution gave me those freedoms, man was smart enough to be able to keep me from living those freedoms by saying I was "separate but equal."

Today, my constitutional right of freedom of religion is being eroded again by laws such as the Hate Crimes Bill and repeated attacks by the politically correct crowd. Threats that came along as a result of an African American wanting to get out from under Jim Crow laws were formidable and scary and designed to keep African Americans quiet. The same thing is happening to Christians today.

"Speechless: Silencing the Christians," by Don Wildmon, lays out determined strategy of coalition of liberal secularists, homosexual activists and Fortune 500 companies

Another way secular society is trying to control Christians is by the fallacy of the separation of church and state. That establishment clause was intended to protect the church from the state, not to keep the church from participating in the state. Christians' ignorance of the meaning of the establishment clause has allowed us to be controlled just like the African Americans were in the 1950s and '60s.

Many may question why I'm writing this article because they can't see the fight in our society and world concerning the overt attack on Judeo-Christian values.

If you don't believe one could be attacked for their stand on Judeo-Christian beliefs alone, take the case of Miss California, Carrie Prejean. Look at her refusal to compromise her Christian values. She has been vilified, demonized and lost her title simply because of her constitutional right to freedom of religion. What is so encouraging is that she will not compromise; she will not give up her values and would rather please God than take what the world has to offer her.

Sarah Palin is another example.

The politically correct crowd has a very difficult time dealing with Sarah because of who she is. Mrs. Palin is a pro-life, pro-gun, pro-traditional marriage, pro-hunting, white, conservative, Christian male who happened to have been born a woman! The politically correct crowd knows exactly what to do with a white male with those attributes, but a woman?

She is the perfect picture of the politically correct woman – strong, beautiful, able to both buy and fry the bacon, take care of the family, run an entire state and still take care of her baby. But because of who she is, and because she does not subscribe to politically correct thinking, she has been attacked for no other reason than her Judeo-Christian values, just as African Americans were attacked for no other reason than their skin color.

If you still don't think Christians are being attacked for our beliefs, consider Pastor Ake Green in Sweden and Pastor Stephen Boisson in Canada and many other men of God around the world who have been jailed and had their non-profit status threatened because they dare to call homosexuality a sin. The sad commentary is many Christians have backed off our God-given responsibility to tell the truth because secular society has deemed the truth "political." Marriage is a church issue, pornography is a church issue, homosexuality is a church issue, and divorce is a church issue. The problem is, as soon as the secular elites named them political, the evangelical church – especially the white evangelical church – retreated and held up the cowardly white flag.

If you don't think Christians have become the new Negro, just look at Christmas! We are no longer able to celebrate Christmas in schools. Even though as taxpayers, our tax dollars help pay for our broken educational system, we are forced to celebrate winter break and the fabulous "holiday tree!"

How about the wonderful greeting, "Happy Holidays!"? Department stores are afraid to put up signs with the word "Christmas" on them. Don't mistakenly think this is anything new. Secular society began taking Christ out of Christmas when they started calling it "Xmas" – and we let it happen.

In my wonderful state of Washington just last year, Gov. Christine Gregoire and the state legislators allowed an Atheist Manifesto to be put up right next to the Nativity scene of our Lord Jesus Christ! I have to say straightforward: the state of Washington is the armpit of the United States, and our lovely legislators are supplying the odiferous scent to the armpit.

Because 2008 was such a disaster, this year there will be no Christmas or religious displays in the Capitol rotunda, period. Oh, except they will put up a huge holiday tree.

Can anybody tell me where common sense is? Everyone in the world knows it's a Christmas tree. This nonsense is all in the name of tolerance toward whom? It's certainly not toward those of us who hold strong Judeo-Christian values. As Christians, it's an attack on what we hold dear. But just like the Negroes, Christians should understand they are not equal under the Constitution's right to freedom of religion.

The only difference between Christians and African Americans is that Christians put up with this intolerance while standing behind the false disguise of humility and love. We are obsessed with showing the world our love when our primary job is to tell them the truth. The Bible does not say, "Sensitivity shall set you free." It says, "The truth shall set you free." Are we not the truth-tellers?

When are we as believers, like the African Americans that came before us, going to say, enough is enough? No more "separate but equal!" Our battle cry is "We are the salt of the earth, onward Christian soldiers and to God be the glory! For in unity we will stand and we will not be stopped!

Dr. Kenneth L. Hutcherson is the senior pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Washington. He is also a former NFL linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks.

Sarah Palin in Richland

2009-11-23T21:11:00.001-08:00

Oh how I am excited that Sarah Palin is coming to the Tri-Cities; Richland to be exact! Ever since I heard of this successful woman governor (three years ago now by Dick Morris) I have been excited and praying for her. My heart has lept at every opportunity that she has made in the political realm and I have told everyone I know how amazing this woman is, how she has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams in Alaska as their chief executive, and how thrilled I am to watch her grow and overcome every obstacle thrown her way. Many of my friends don't understand my joy in seeing Sarah Palin overcome all the awful garbage thrown her way: "She's just another politician!" they would say, but I just shake my head in disagreement. Everything I have read about this woman, absolutely everything, points to a "populist" leader, the second in my lifetime (Ronald Reagan being the first). What I love about Sarah Palin is her common sense approach to life and politics, her commitment to her faith, and her numerous successes in the Alaska political arena. I deeply look forward to her coming here to the lower 48 to help us resolve the enormous messes that are being currently made in Washington DC. In my mind, only Sarah Palin can resolve these fundamental crises' that are facing us as a nation. With everything the morons in DC are doing to rip us apart as a country, I believe Sarah Palin will fix these critical problems; from massive overspending and government debt, to "growing" America's energy resources and tax base through lower taxes. I pray for her success, I wish I could help her in any way possible (so I will continue to blog about her in the best way I can). A woman with such strong faith as Sarah Palin has should be commended and supported by all. We love you Sarah! Continue your ride into Washington DC upon a horse of victory and please remember, it' the cause of liberty that people support you, dear lady. Giving people in this country political liberty will be your legacy! Amen.

RIFQA
Please pray for the teenager Rifqa Bary, who feels she is in danger by her parents and the muslim community in Ohio for converting to Christianity. She has asked the government to prevent her father or someone in her former mosque from killing her, a so-called "honor killing". This despicable death threat against a 16-year-old is so vile and evil that no one cannot condemn the muslim community for allowing such hatred and death to occur. When given the opportunity to denounce "honor killings" the muslim community in Ohio where Rifqa is from hasn't spoken a word against this despicable act. No one has stood up to try and protect this poor girl except people in her new church. Please pray that God will protect this poor woman from violence and death, and pray against the muslims of the world: truly a religion of evil. For more details about this story, see HERE.

The Other LCS Aces Sea Trials
November 22, 2009
By StrategyPage.com

The second of two American Littoral (coastal) Combat Ship (LCS) designs has successfully completed its trials. The ship, the USS Independence, will be commissioned in January. The U.S. Navy's first 3,000 ton LCS is already in service, and discovering what life is really like for the most radical new ship design in decades. Completed last year at a Lake Michigan shipyard, the USS Freedom is now at its home port, San Diego, and going to sea regularly. The USS Freedom is a more conventional design, looking like any other 3,000 ton warship.

The USS Independence is a little lighter (2,800 tons) than Freedom. The most obvious difference between the two designs is that trimaran design provides a larger, and more stable, flight deck for helicopters, and more interior space. The trimaran design is based on one pioneered since he 1980s by Australian ship builder Austal. This design has been used by several successful fast transports, used with much success in the Pacific since the 1990s. Austal was selected to design the Independence based on the success of their earlier trimaran designs, some of which were used by the U.S. Navy. Next year, the two designs will be put to a lot of tests to see if one is sufficiently superior to the other to justify a single design being used for all 50 LCS ships. There is also the possibility that both ships will prove suitable, in different ways, to get the job done. In this case, each design will get a share of the 50 or so LCS ships built.

In general, there are also several unanswered questions for the LCS, that could only be cleared up by actually taking one to sea. One issue was refueling at sea. Now the U.S. Navy has been doing this for over a century, and has the drill down pretty good. The oiler (fuel ship) and receiving ship move in parallel (30-60 meters apart), at a slow speed (about 25 kilometers an hour) and the oiler shoots over cables that hold a fuel line. The two ships maintain their position and speed by synchronizing the revolutions of their propellers. The LCS has two problems with this drill. First, the LCS doesn't use a propeller (but water jets). No problem, it turns out, as the LCS has a lot more control over speed. After some practice using a computer simulator, the "keeping station" with the oiler problem was solved. Another problem was the flat bottom of the LCS 1 (which makes it capable of entering very shallow littoral waters), makes the vessel roll in rough seas. This proved to be a minor problem. LCS 2, and its trimaran design, has less problems with this. Crews will get lots of practice with at-sea refueling, because the LCS has to do so every 3-4 days when travelling with a task force on the high seas.

Another minor problem is that the LCS is not equipped to take pallets of other supplies from an oiler (which is actually a combined cargo/tanker ship these days). So pallets will have to be delivered by helicopter. The USS Freedom has not yet received its SH-60 helicopter, but having pallets delivered this way is not expected to be a problem.

Another potential problem is the high speed of the LCS, which is the fastest seagoing ship to ever serve with the U.S. fleet. The USS Freedom has gone as fast as 85 kilometers an hour, and it's believed that the power plant can be tweaked to get that a little higher. At such high speeds, it's easier to run into whales. This occasionally happens, especially at night. For larger ships, the result is usually a dead, or badly injured whale, and little damage to the ship. But the smaller LCS, hitting a large whale, while travelling at high speed, could leave the ship damaged (the whale would definitely be dead.) So far, the sailors on the bridge are to keep a sharp lookout for whales when the ship is travelling at high speed.

The LCS has a crew of 40, which is pretty small for a ship this size (which, in the past, would have about four times as many sailors). But the LCS is highly automated. On the Freedom, the captain decided that officers, including himself, would pitch in with maintenance and housekeeping chores. More so than in larger ships, sailors learn to do other jobs on an LCS, and, as a result, work is lot more interesting and less boring. But it can get intense at times, and there are still questions about whether the smaller crew, and all the "smartship" tech can really handle the kind of damage control emergencies that crop up on military ships

Normally, an LCS would have another 35 crew manning its "mission package". The LCS is designed for a variety of interchangeable modules (e.g., air defense, underwater warfare, special operations, surface attack, etc.), which will allow the ships to be quickly reconfigured for various specialized missions. Crews will also be modularized, so that specialized teams can be swapped in to operate specific modules. Thus about 40 percent of the ship is empty, with a large cargo hold into which the mission package gear is inserted (and then removed, along with the package crew, when it is no longer assigned to that ship.) Thus the LCS has two crews when underway, the "ship" crew and the mission package crew. The captain of the ship crew is in charge, and the officer commanding the mission package is simply the officer in charge of the largest equipment system on board. In addition, the core crew of 40 is actually two crews ("blue" and "gold") who take turns running the ship. This makes it possible to keep an LCS at a distant posting for years, by simply flying in a relief crew every six months.

Three years ago, when construction began on LCS 1, it was to displace 2,500 tons, with a full load draft of under ten feet (permitting access to very shallow "green" and even "brown" coastal and riverine waters, where most naval operations have taken place in the past generation. Top speed is expected was to be over 80 kilometers with a range of 6,300 kilometers (at much slower cruising speed). The 378 foot long ship still has the range and top speed it was designed for. Basic endurance is 21 days. Thus the Freedom has to refuel and resupply more frequently than larger ships. When using its max speed a lot, much more fuel is burned, and that 21 day endurance can be reduced to 3-4 days.

Built using "smartship" technologies, which greatly reduce personnel requirements, the basic LCS was expected to require a crew of 40 in basic configuration, but will have billeting for about 75 personnel. The recent sea trials gave the smartship features a workout, which, so far appears to be successful. The successful sea trials were very important, because the LCS project was over budget, behind schedule and, worst of all, an untried new concept.

The two different LCS designs are quite different in appearance. Freedom has a semi-planning monohull, while Independence is a trimaran. LCS 1 (USS Freedom) was laid down by Lockheed Martin in Marinette, Wisconsin, in June of 2005 and was expected to be commissioned in 2007, after months of sea tests in late 2006. That schedule slipped, with the ship not completed until late 2008, and sea trials not starting until January, 2009.

LCS 2 (USS Independence) was laid down by General Dynamics in late 2005. These, and LCS 3 and LCS 4, were to be built by Lockheed and General Dynamics, respectively. These are also essentially prototypes, and serial procurement was expected to begin this year, after initial design flaws had been worked out. That has slipped a year or two. Ultimately, the Navy hoped to have 55 LCSs by 2014-18, at a cost of $90 million each. Congress has capped the price of LCS ships at $460 million, after years of increases, and threats to cancel the project.

There were a lot of problems with the LCS design. The USS Freedom ended up costing $500 million, more than twice what the first ship in the class was supposed to have cost. Next year, the navy will choose which of the designs will serve as the model for all future LCS class vessels. At that point, the winner will build two more ships of their design, and the loser one. All five of these LCS ships will be used heavily to determine what changes in the basic design are required. Then, mass production will commence, to build another 50 ships. The US Navy has ordered a second LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) from Lockheed Martin.

The LCS is armed with a 57mm gun, four 12.7mm machine-guns, and an eleven cell SeaRam system for air and missile defense. The RAM (RIM-116 "Rolling Air Frame") missiles replace Phalanx autocannon. SeaRAM has a longer range (7.5 kilometers) than the Phalanx (two kilometers).

CNN’s War on Lou Dobbs

2009-11-13T13:54:00.001-08:00

AIM Column | By Allie Winegar Duzett | November 13, 2009

Accuracy in Media's blogs have already acknowledged Lou Dobbs' resignation from CNN, but the story here requires a little more delving. Reading about the situation, I cannot help but remember someone else's recent resignation-which turned out to have a lot more behind it.

As it turns out, leftist organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Media Matters have been working hard to get Dobbs off the air for months. On July 24, 2009, SPLC President Richard Cohen wrote to CNN President Jonathan Klein to complain that Dobbs was "questioning" the verity of President Obama's birth certificate and "push[ing] racist conspiracy theories [and] defamatory falsehoods about immigrants." On the other hand, Media Matters' George Soros funded the Drop Dobbs website, which since September 2009 has been featuring charming pages on Dobb's "History of Hate." This Drop Dobbs campaign has been taken up by a number of radical organizations, including the National Council of La Raza, and the Center for New Community.

For those who don't know, La Raza is a far left, racist radical group. As AIM's Cliff Kincaid pointed out:

Tancredo had called the Council a Latino KKK because the commonly accepted definition of the term "La Raza," meaning "the race," has clear connotations of a racial or racist agenda. The Council insists that "La Raza" has been "mistranslated" and only means "the people" or "community." But whatever the definition or translation, the term still refers to putting group rights above individual rights.

The Center for New Community, on the other hand, has a grander goal. The Center is fixated on "transform[ing] the world" by addressing "contemporary social, economic and racial justice issues" and "mak[ing] real the vision we share for a new community, and a nation in which the dimity and value of all humanity is manifest." It remains to be seen how the Center will make the dimity of humanity manifest.

Dobbs quit on the air; you can read the transcript of it all here. It's worth noting that his decision came after "talks" with CNN President Klein-kind of like how Van Jones' resignation came after "talks" with Jonathan K. Carson, the chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Examine Dobbs' words of resignation (emphasis my own):

I truly believe that the major issues of our time include the growth of our middle class, the creation of more jobs, health care, immigration policy, the environment, climate change, and our military involvement, of course, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But each of those issues is in my opinion informed by our capacity to demonstrate strong resilience of our now weakened capitalist economy and demonstrate the political will to overcome the lack of true representation in Washington, D.C. I believe these to be profoundly critically important issues and I will continue to strive to deal honestly and straightforwardly with those issues in the future.

Unfortunately, these issues are now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion. I'll be working diligently to change that as best I can. And, as for the important work of restoring inspiration to our great free society and our market economy, I will strive as well to be a leader in that national conversation.

It would appear as though Dobbs' true reason for leaving is that his "rigorous empirical thought" and "forthright analysis and discussion" of capitalist issues are now viewed as "partisan" and "ideological," and clearly, CNN would never stand for anything partisan or ideological on their channel, ever. That's why they have balanced, objective reporters like Fareed Zakaria and Anderson Cooper.

This is the second time this year CNN has chased away a conservative; early on in 2009, Glenn Beck left the network to pursue his career with Fox News (although the deals were signed in October 2008). And apparently, this hasn't worked out well for them yet. CNN is still failing when it comes to prime-time news, as WTOP.com reports:

CNN's average prime-time audience was third behind Fox and MSNBC during October, and it was even eclipsed by sister network HLN among younger viewers, according to the Nielsen Co. Perhaps more ominous, CNN finished well behind Fox when big news was breaking Election Night [sic] and the Fort Hood massacre. Big stories usually sent viewers flocking to CNN.

On November 11, 2009, CNN Worldwide President Jim Walton said that he wanted CNN to deliver "factual" and "timely" news around the world, stating, "We compete against a lot more than Fox and MSNBC."

Well, "compete" is a strong word for Walton to use, considering that at any given time, Fox News has at least twice and often three times as many viewers. Maybe it's wishful thinking-especially since CNN just ditched Dobbs, its last prime-time conservative, and the only one who could reasonably compete for the conservative-leaning audience of Fox.

Worst Terrorist Attack Since 911

2009-11-08T17:24:00.001-08:00

America Again Turns a Blind Eye

By John L. Work

November 6, 2009

Yesterday, November 5th, 2009, United States Army Major Nidal Hasan, an American citizen born of Jordanian parents, a medical doctor, a psychiatrist, educated in the universities of this nation – and a Muslim – reportedly yelled the Arabic language jihad war cry Allahu akbar, God is Great, as he opened fire and waged a horrendously bloody act of jihad on unsuspecting soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood, Texas, the largest military installation in the world. We now know that Hasan gave us lots of notice that he might do this, including pro-jihad statements he reportedly made to other military officers and his anti-war internet postings that were known by federal authorities.

So, how could this happen?

Unbelievably, as the event was still unfolding yesterday, the FBI announced to the nation by and through Fox News TV that there was absolutely no terrorist nexus or connection to this incident. How many times have we seen FBI spokesmen sprint to TV microphones before an investigation has even commenced to breathlessly assure us that a murderous incident like this is isolated and is not related in any way to Islam or to Muslim jihad terrorist activity? How much longer are we going to give credence to anything the FBI tells us? Please, stop lying to me.

Today begins the official media scrubbing clean, or in columnist and author Diana West’s word – sanitizing – of Islam and any connection to Muslim doctrine, law, tenet, or accepted mainstream Islamic belief from yesterday’s horrific events. Major Hasan’s Muslim family is stunned. The imam at Hasan’s mosque in Maryland is puzzled. The big news outlets, with the exception of Sean Hannity at Fox News, are blindly, pathetically searching for elusive, mysterious answers to the conundrum. Even some conservative talk radio show hosts I have listened to this morning do not have it right.

I am not stunned or surprised by this act of jihad. The slaughter enrages me.

What is truly stunning to me is the continuing depth, breadth and immensity of the abject ignorance of America’s political leaders, military leaders, and big news outlets about Islam. Words are not adequate to describe my disgust at the fact that, years after the jihad attacks on the cities of New York, Washington, D.C., London and Madrid, virtually no one in the higher levels of our government or our major media seems to have even a clue as to what we are really up against.

America continues to willfully turn a blind eye to that which is right in front of her face, like an elephant standing in the living room that no one will talk about.

The World of Islam is at war with us.

We have listened to Bill Clinton, George Bush, and now Barack Obama, tell us that Islam is a religion of peace and that we are not fighting a war against Islam. It’s time to awaken and see what is truly before us, before it destroys our way of life and our nation.

The skull-cracking truth, America, is that in the World of Islam, politics, government, religion, civil law, criminal law, personal hygiene, clothing style, and all other minute facets of life are rolled and bundled into one totalitarian package. And we’re just unbelievably not getting it yet into our heads that if we do not come to grips with the doctrines and law of Islam that are driving the jihad, including the horror yesterday at Fort Hood, we are going to lose this War.

There is such an emphasis on the spiritual dynamic of Islam that America has foolishly and ignorantly repeatedly leapt to the mantle of the First Amendment to excuse and accommodate the relentless incremental demands for Muslim law to be imposed on our culture. Footbaths at the JBS plant in Greeley, Colorado and a new Muslim prayer room at the University of Colorado come to mind.

The issue before us for the survival of our way of life is not one of religion. So, please, America, please get that First Amendment stuff out of your head for the moment. It’s not relevant to the problem at hand.

Here’s the problem we face: There is an immense package of codified Muslim civil, criminal and political law, which includes the repression of women and non-Muslim men, the command for establishing the supremacy of Islam over all other political and legal systems, and a barbaric, unspeakably cruel system of criminal law and punishment for offenses against Islam. That is the issue facing us. In radio talk show host Peter Boyles’ words this morning, would a Nazi sympathizer have been permitted to join the U.S. Army in 1943?

So, where to now, America? When are we going to begin to examine and publicly debate the laws and doctrines of Islam without the fear of being labeled racist or xenophobe, in order that we may survive this relentless onslaught of jihad?

It’s not a matter of race relations. Islam makes no exclusion based upon race. There are Muslims all over the world of many different races. And we’d better get our heads around that idea pretty quickly, then stop listening to the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Yesterday it was a successful deadly attack on Fort Hood. Countless numbers of attempts to commit terrorist attacks have been foiled. Eight years ago it was New York City and Washington, D.C. According to eminent scholar of Islam and author Robert Spencer there have been over fourteen-thousand violent jihad attacks world-wide since the 2001 World Trade Center destruction and killing of nearly three-thousand Americans.

Wake up, America. We’re still under attack. And the enemy has infiltrated our armed forces.

Health Care DISASTER Bill Passed

2009-11-08T16:56:00.000-08:00

OBAMACARE ENDORSEMENTS: WHAT THE BRIBE WAS
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on TheHill.com on November 6, 2009

As the suicidal Democratic congressmen proceed to rubber-stamp the Obama healthcare reform despite the drubbing their party took in the '09 elections, the president trotted out the endorsements of the AMA and the AARP to stimulate support. But these -- and the other endorsements -- his package has received are all bought and paid for.

Here are the deals:

* The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians' reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill. The cuts are the fruit of a law requiring annual 5-6 percent reductions in doctor reimbursements for treating Medicare patients. Bravely, each year Congress has rolled the cuts over, suspending them but not repealing them. So each year, the accumulated cuts threaten doctors. By now, they have risen to 21 percent. With this blackmail leverage, Obama compelled the AMA to support his bill...or else!

* The AARP got a financial windfall in return for its support of the healthcare bill. Over the past decade, the AARP has morphed from an advocacy group to an insurance company (through its subsidiary company). It is one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost, privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician. So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues.

Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP -- which supposedly represents them -- will make more money. (If this galls you, join the American Seniors Association, the alternative group; contact sbarton@americanseniors.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)

* The drug industry backed ObamaCare and, in return, got a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade.) They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. All it had to do was put its formidable advertising budget at the disposal of the administration.

* Insurance companies got access to 40 million potential new customers. But when the Senate Finance Committee lowered the fine that would be imposed on those who don't buy insurance from $3,500 to $1,500, the insurance companies jumped ship and now oppose the bill, albeit for the worst of motives.

The only industry that refused to knuckle under was the medical device makers. They stood for principle and wouldn't go along with Obama's blackmail. So the Senate Finance Committee retaliated by imposing a tax on medical devices such as automated wheelchairs, pacemakers, arterial stents, prosthetic limbs, artificial knees and hips and other necessary accouterments of healthcare.

So these endorsements are not freely given, but bought and paid for by an administration that is intent on passing its program at any cost.

Who's Afraid of Obama?

2009-10-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday on a news program the question was asked, "Are evil people like Kim Il-Jong and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad afraid of Barak Obama"? The context was that dictators like those mentioned above were afraid of the Bush/Cheney team and thus were loathe to antagonize them, lest they get a Tomohawk cruise missile sent up their butts by the US Navy. I had to laugh at the question, because clearly if the Iranians were afraid to build their nuclear bomb and drop it on someone, they aren't anymore since their program is going ahead full steam. (What is more likely is that they will hand over a nuclear bomb to their Hamas or Hezbollah allies who wil then ship it to New York City on a cargo freighter, BOOM!).

The real question (I believe) is not are these murderous madmen afraid of the United States and its military but is the average US citizen now afraid of the government (and its czarist leader, Barack Obama). You see, BO has no problem in speaking to vicious America-haters like Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even though these monsters have killed millions of their own people (literally millions). The reason why Obama has no problem speaking to them is that they are left-wingers like he is. All you have to do is take a look at the high-level Maoist and communists that Obama has placed in his cabinent (and administration) to realize how leftist he really is: Van Jones, Mark Lloyd, John Holdren, and Anita Dunn to name a few. He apparently has no moral qualms speaking to mass murderers who still kill and oppress their own people, to this very day. I think the Americans who founded this country would be shocked to know that our latest President could care not one whit about dictators and murderers and people who deny liberty to their own citizens. They would surely be deeply angry at how stupid we are as a nation to elect someone so venial and clearly morally bankrupt. I guess we deserve what we get....

Unfortunately it doesn't stop there because it is clear that Obama has no problem hanging out with leftist nutjobs like Chavez and Manuel Ortega of Nicaragua (who killed millions in his own country) but he is no refusing to speak to the right wingers in his own country. So let me be clear, he will speak to Machmoud Ahmadinejad who wants to kill all the Jews in the Middle East but he won't speak to Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly or Laura Ingraham?! He has also said no one in his administration will be speaking to the Fox News Network and that Fox isn;'t even a "real" tv network. This sounds very much what Chavez pulled in Venezuela when he destroyed the opposition tv and radio stations in his country, eventually imprisoning his enemies by saying they supported seditious acts against the government and his leadership. Many on the left are also saying Fox News is seditious, which is ridiculous because I watch it every night, looking closely at the facts with an objective point-of-view. In the end the stupid President of the United States (Obama) is only cutting his own throat by using these dictator-style tactics against his fellow Americans and he will be re-elected. In fact, I believe tha Democrats will be gutted in the next election cycle (fall 2010) because they have stooped to gutter-style political tactics that sicken average Americans. Refusing to speak to a 100 million people in this country becuase they do not have the same Maoist/communist viewpoints that you do is brainless, foolhardy, and laughable. Luckily this will ensure no second administration for he Obamination.

Three STUPID Things Obama Just Did

2009-10-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

Okay the Obama Administration is becoming more and more irrelevant as they continue to do the most startlingly stupid things both domestically and internationally. Listed below are the three stupidest things the Obamabots have done in the last week:

1)Wage War on Fox: While we as a nation are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the stupid Obama crowd has decided it wants to wage a brand new war: against Fox News. Their incredibly stupid pissing match with Fox, which easily represents at least 100 million Americans with similar views only cripples the President in his domestic agenda. How foolish can you be to try and start an internal fight within the United States while we are still fighting two major wars overseas? Obama should pay attention to the fighting in Afghanistan, which is deteriorating, and stop picking fights with his domestic opponents. Are we still in an economic crisis?! Are we still not at war?! Hopefully Obama and his idiot crowd in the White House will get the message that We The People want him to work on the very serious problems we already have in this country, not start new ones (like bullies do).

2)Dropping Nukes: At a time when the rest of the world seems intent on getting nuclear weapons, the looney left crowd surrounding Obama have convinced him that getting rid of all nukes will somehow solve much of the worlds problems, which is stupid beyond belief. First off, nuclear weapons created a strategic peace for over 60 years after WW2 as all sides feared a nuclear holocaust and behaved themselves. One week after the Obamabots running the White House declared their intention to work on getting rid of all nukes, the Russians formally came out and said that their nation couldn't rely on its conventional defenses to defend their country, so they would use nuclear weapons first in any future war. If the Iranian and North Korean efforts to get nukes didn't wake up the Obamanuts, hopefully Russia's new declaration will. Nuclear weapons in the right hands bring peace, in the wrong hands: total war. So we should keep ours and stop the loons in Iran and North Korea from getting theirs, lest we face a global nuclear nightmare. And anyone with ANY vision can clearly see that once Iran develops their own nuclear weapons, they will hand it over to their terrorist allies and an American city like New York or Washington DC will be destroyed by these madmen. This has to be stopped at all costs.

3)Destroying the USA: For some bizarre reason the Obama-idiots seem intent on destroying the USA. Take for example their intended take-over of the health care system. Obama and the Democrat Congress seem hell-bent on taking over the entire health care system, when simple oversight a few changes in the law is needed. Since the USA is seriously over-stretched financially, it is beyond irresponsible to take on a new multi-trillion dollar program at this time. The only reason to do so is to bring this nation into a full-fledged monetary crisis or as a power-mad grab over the individual lives of people across this country. Can you imagine that everyone's medical files will be open and available to the government?! Talk about a major intrusion on doctor-patient confidentiality. As for "death panels", people on the east cost and deep south obviously haven't heard of Barbara Wagner, the Oregon woman who was forced to die because the state wouldn't pay for her medicine to keep her alive. They offered to pay for her assisted suicide however, which cost only $50. Every citizen should read about this terrible situation before advocating state-run health care.

Abortion Fanatics Kill Pro-Life Guy

2009-09-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

Slain Pro-Life Advocate Jim Pouillon Known as the Peaceful Abortion Sign Guy

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 11, 2009

Owosso, MI (LifeNews.com) -- Jim Pouillon was known as the sign guy by resident of this otherwise sleepy local community 45 minutes northeast of Lansing, Michigan. But Pouillon was shot Friday morning as he did what he did best -- hold his pro-life sign outside of a local high school letting students and teaching know some of their peers are missing.

Cal Zastrow, a longtime pro-life advocate in Michigan knew Pouillon well, calling him a "close friend" and said he "got his martyr's crown this morning" after suffering multiple gunshots and claimed his life.

"I talked to him on the phone this week and prayed with him before he went out to Owosso High School to minister," he said.

While Pouillon was active in protesting abortion -- and his death will bring up the issue of abortion and violence again in the wake of the shooting of late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller -- he always condemned violence as a solution to the violence of abortion.

"Jim was completely non-violent and he condemned violence," Zastrow said.

Judy Climer, president of Flint Right to Life, described Pouillon to the Flint Journal newspaper as "just a nice, elderly gentleman who was disabled, used an oxygen tank and wore leg braces."

Climber said he would regularly visit abortion businesses in Flint and Saginaw to pray and hold pro-life signs.

"I knew him very well. He told me one time God put in his heart a passion for the little babies that have the right to be born and they were being denied that right," said Climer. "He even told me once he'd be willing to die for that belief. That's what I hear him saying right now."

Pouillon was involved in a pro-life free speech case several years ago that saw him sue local police after he was arrested for “refusing a lawful police order” to move from city hall steps and for “obstructing passage to a public building."

His attorneys filed a lawsuit on his behalf saying police violated his rights to freedom of speech, religion, and assembly.

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, under presiding Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, denied his motion for summary judgment and, after a jury found against him, his renewed motion for judgment.

Pouillon appealed the decision and an appeals court held that the steps of the city hall were a public place and Pouillon was within his First Amendment rights to protest abortion there.

The court eventually upheld a portion of the decision and overturned parts of it.

Steven H. Aden, the senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, represented Pouillon in the case.

“Jim Pouillon was a courageous friend of both unborn children and the First Amendment right to speak up on their behalf, and he will be sorely missed," Aden told LifeNews.com today.

"I hope his loss, and his example, will inspire many others – particularly young people – to take up the cross he bore and defend the right of all of God’s children to live, and to live in peace," he said.

In the legal documents in the case, his attorneys described Pouillon this way: "James Pouillon is a dedicated anti-abortion protester whose non-working life is largely devoted to activism in that cause."

"He was a familiar figure on the streets of Owosso, where he staged abortion protests for a portion of each day almost every weekday for over ten years," they said.

"On the date he was arrested, he had decided to move his protest from his customary post on the sidewalk to a position on a small plaza separating upper and lower short flights of steps to city hall, or on the steps themselves," they added.

"On the sidewalk, he had often been the target of verbal abuse as well as assorted missiles, and had once been almost run down by a motorist who swerved onto the sidewalk and drove straight at him," they concluded.

Nobama and Van Jones

2009-09-10T12:56:00.000-07:00

Beck: American People Stood Up to Bring Down Van Jones

Sunday, September 6, 2009 8:43 PM

Fox News host Glenn Beck, who led the charge calling for the resignation of President Barack Obama’s “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones said Sunday that Jones is only the first of many radicals in the administration who should be facing questions.

“The American people stood up and demanded answers," Beck wrote in a statement. “Instead of providing them, the Administration had Jones resign under cover of darkness. I continue to be amazed by the power of everyday Americans to initiate change in our government through honest questioning, and judging by the other radicals in the administration, I expect that questioning to continue for the foreseeable future."

Jones resigned late Saturday following mounting criticism over his past statements and associations. The tipping point came when it was discovered that he signed a petition in 2004 supporting the "9/11 truther" movement, which believes the Bush administration may have been complicit in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

“Much of the credit for Jones resigning should go to Fox's Glenn Beck, who as HuffPo's Ryan Grim notes, has his "first scalp,” Politico reported Sunday.

Beck’s victory was being lauded by conservative columnists and grudgingly acknowledged by liberals across the country Sunday.

“Face it, Glenn Beck won a big victory for conservative America with the resignation of Van Jones,” wrote Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist.

“Beck kept up the pressure, and the mainstream media reported on it. As a result, Jones couldn't really muster any effective counter-attack. He had made mistakes, tried to apologize for them but was too late,” Abouhalkah added.

“As scary as this may sound… Glenn Beck might actually have more power than anybody else representing the Republican Party,” the Web site Political Lore.com wrote Sunday. “As the Republican Party seemingly has no leader in their ranks, at least one that can represent the voice of the people. Even though Glenn Beck is an independent, he represents more Republicans than the Republican party.”

“The resignation of Van Jones signals that Glenn Beck’s words do not fall on deaf ears. The view’s of Glenn Beck have been labeled “extreme” from just about everyone on the left. Van Jones views are arguably just as extreme, if not more so,” the article continued.

It was Beck who repeatedly called attention to a series of statements by Jones that suggested Republicans were incompetent and bad in their opposition to Obama’s liberal agenda. Among other things, Jones called GOP members racists and a**holes.

Jones was also the co-founder of ColorOfChange, the African-American activist group that attempted to lead a boycott against Beck. But the boycott had the opposite of the intended effect – many advertisers denied they were boycotting Beck and his grassroots support surged. In the traditionally weak, non-prime time slot at 5 p.m., Beck is now drawing more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined get in their prime time hours.

Even before the attempted boycott, Beck mentioned Jones twice on his radio show and twice on television. The boycott started after Beck called Obama "a racist" on Fox & Friends, but the comment occurred in the context of the racial controversy surrounding the arrest of Obama friend Henry Louis Gates by a white Cambridge police officer.

Beck mentioned Jones on 14 episodes, according to the Washington Independent's Dave Weigel, while also railing against him on "The O'Reilly Factor."

Beck also succeeded in keeping the national debate focused on the far left tendencies embodied in many of Obama’s policies and nominees, Politico pointed out. Now Obama is going into a key health reform speech before Congress on Wednesday with the taint of the Van Jones scandal marring his agenda.

“Between Cambridge cops; whether administration officials are or are not for the public option; right wing mobbing at town halls; and the back to school welcome contretemps, the White House has been forced to play defense and loose-ball control over [the summer],” former Clinton White House aide Chris Lehane told Politico. He noted that a “very important week” could have been consumed by “ a discussion related to an obscure staffer who no one has ever really heard of.”

But even before his resignation, critics said the controversy surrounding Jones was indicative of the fundamental problem with the administration's reliance on such advisers.

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the first lawmaker to call for Jones' resignation, told Fox News that in light of the controversy Obama should suspend the appointment of additional "czars" until Congress has a chance to examine the background and responsibilities of such individuals, as well as determine the constitutionality of such appointments.

Now that Jones is out of the way, Republicans are turning their fire on czars in general.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, called the czars "an affront to the Constitution" since they are not approved by Congress.

"I don't think (Jones is) the issue. I think the czars are the issue," Alexander, R-Tenn., said on "FOX News Sunday." "We have about two dozen so-called czars -- the pay czar, the car czar, all these czars in the White House."

Republican strategist Ed Rollins said the administration needs to focus on bringing people on board who are competent and not controversial.

"(Jones) got out of there, but the more fundamental thing is there are 31 czars in that White House," he said.

OBAMA JOINT SESSION

Okay, so anyone watching the joint session of Congress which Obama called for to discuss his health care plan would be flabbergasted at all the misinformation and lies that Obama spewed during the 45 minute "info-mercial". Where he is going to come up with $900 billion dollars to fund it is crazy. And the lie that it won't cover illegal aliens destroyed Obama's crediblity utterly. He also stood there and berated the Republicans for "lying" about many health care issues that have sprung up. I had to laugh when Congressmen Wilson from South Carolina finally couldn't take being called a liar anymore and stood up, sayin, "You lie!" What is good for the goose is good for the gander, Mr. Nobama.

SARAH PALIN'S RESPONSE

Response to the President's Health Care Speech

After all the rhetoric is put aside, one principle ran through President Obama’s speech tonight: that increased government involvement in health care can solve its problems.

Many Americans fundamentally disagree with this idea. We know from long experience that the creation of a massive new bureaucracy will not provide us with “more stability and security,” but just the opposite. It's hard to believe the President when he says that this time he and his team of bureaucrats have finally figured out how to do things right if only we’ll take them at their word.

Our objections to the Democrats’ health care proposals are not mere “bickering” or “games.” They are not an attempt to “score short term political points.” And it’s hard to listen to the President lecture us not to use “scare tactics” when in the next breath he says that “more will die” if his proposals do not pass.

In his speech the President directly responded to concerns I’ve raised about unelected bureaucrats being given power to make decisions affecting life or death health care matters. He called these concerns “bogus,” “irresponsible,” and “a lie” -- so much for civility. After all the name-calling, though, what he did not do is respond to the arguments we’ve made, arguments even some of his own supporters have agreed have merit.

In fact, after promising to “make sure that no government bureaucrat .... gets between you and the health care you need,” the President repeated his call for an Independent Medicare Advisory Council -- an unelected, largely unaccountable group of bureaucrats charged with containing Medicare costs. He did not disavow his own statement that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost ... the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives....” He did not disavow the statements of his health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, and continuing to pay his salary with taxpayer dollars proves a commitment to his beliefs. The President can keep making unsupported assertions, but until he directly responds to the arguments I’ve made, I’m going to call him out too.

It was heartening to hear the President finally recognize that tort reform is an important part of any solution. But this concession shouldn’t lead us to take our eye off the ball: the Democrats’ proposals will not reduce costs, and they will not deliver better health care. It’s this kind of “healthy skepticism of government” that truly reflects a “concern and regard for the plight of others.” We can’t wait to hear the details on that; we look forward to working with you on tort reform.

Finally, President Obama delivered an offhand applause line tonight about the cost of the War on Terror. As we approach the anniversary of the September 11th attacks and honor those who died that day and those who have died since in the War on Terror, in order to secure our freedoms, we need to remember their sacrifices and not demonize them as having had too high a price tag.

Remember, Mr. President, elected officials work for the people. Forcing a conclusion in order to claim a “victory” is not healthy for our country. We hear you say government isn’t always the answer; now hear us -- that’s what we’ve been saying all along.

- Sarah Palin

Drop Dead Ted

2009-08-31T16:06:00.000-07:00

Several years ago tens of thousands of people celebrated, no rejoiced, in the death of one of America's greatest Presidents. Left-wing haters had stored a bottle of champagne in their refrigerators for years, some as long as a decade, waiting for this event. Most were gay men, who hated Ronald Reagan with a passion and stated into their daily blogs and livejournals that they only wished he had suffered more from his Alzheimer's before he died (and that Nancy Reagan would continue to suffer). Any normal person of course would be aghast at this sort of hatred and this sort of vicious prejudice should be condemned by all normal thinking Americans.

However, at the death of Edward Kennedy this week, people should be reminded that he wasn't this great senator that you hear about so much in the media, he was a habitual drunk who killed a woman while he was driving, and thus was a murderer as well. He also continually supported government-funded abortion in the USA at every step in his political career and thus should be held responsible for the deaths of 45 million babies that have been aborted since Roe vs. Wade became law. (That alone should have gotten him banned from the Catholic church forever).

He was also a well-known philanderer, from a family of serial philanderers. It is hard to ignore that his father built the Kennedy family money from bribes when he was an ambassador, or that his brothers both cheated on their wives, or that his nephew (Michael Skakel) was a murderer and a rapist; I guess that is what you can expect from a family of wealthy and politically connected sexual predators. Skakel even boasted that he was a Kennedy to his friends and thus would be found innocent of the rape and murder of Martha Moxley; he was found guilty in a court of law in 2002. Sadly, despite the best of intentions nearly everything this monstrous family has done has been touched by evil. Ted Kennedy himself was driving drunk and killed the woman he was driving with, Mary Jo Kopeckny. He didn't try to save her and waited nearly 12 hours to report her death because he was drunk at the time. Mary Jo Kopeckny's family has never forgiven Ted Kennedy for her death, and Ted himself never apologized for it. She was pregnant, he was married. Anyone else would have gone to jail for a long time, but not dear ole Ted.

Moreover, the Kennedys as a family have done more harm to the United States and to the average American via their political agenda than any other family in our history; from taking money from hard earning people (the producers) and giving it to the poor (the parasites) to lining their own pocketbooks with dirty cash and being accountable for the numerous (and very real) the crimes they have committed. I feel very little pity for a family that has done so much evil to so many people. Finally, I have watched CSPAN for years and seen his Ted Kennedy vilify and castigate his opponents and average hard working Americans. With that in mind, he himself deserves very little respect or kindness since he gave very little to anyone else, unless they had the last name of "Kennedy".

All I can say is good riddance to Ted Kennedy, we won't miss you and hopefully we won't hear any more from your despicable and self-righteous family who once arrogantly thought themselves to be "the royalty of America".

Human Life International's Statement on the Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy
We must, as a matter of precept, pray for the salvation of heretical Catholics like Senator Edward Kennedy, but we do not have to praise him let alone extol him with the full honors of a public Catholic funeral and all the adulation that attends such an event. There was very little about Ted Kennedy's life that deserves admiration from a spiritual or moral point of view. He was probably the worst example of a Catholic statesman that one can think of. When all is said and done, he has distorted the concept of what it means to be a Catholic in public life more than anyone else in leadership today.

Obviously we don't know the state of Senator Edward Kennedy's soul upon death. We don't pretend to. We are told by the family that he had the opportunity to confess his sins before a priest, and his priest has said publicly he was "at peace" when he died. For that we are grateful. But it is one thing to confess one's sins and for these matters to be kept, rightfully, private. It is another thing entirely for one who so consistently and publicly advocated for the destruction of unborn human beings to depart the stage without a public repudiation of these views, a public confession, as it were.

It is up to God to judge Senator Kennedy's soul. We, as rational persons, must judge his actions, and his actions were not at all in line with one who values and carefully applies Church teaching on weighty matters. Ted Kennedy's positions on a variety of issues have been a grave scandal for decades, and to honor this "catholic" champion of the culture of death with a Catholic funeral is unjust to those who have actually paid the price of fidelity. We now find out that President Obama will eulogize the Senator at his funeral, an indignity which, following on the heels of the Notre Dame fiasco, leaves faithful Catholics feeling sullied, desecrated and dehumanized by men who seem to look for opportunities to slap the Church in the face and do so with impunity simply because they have positions of power.

It is not enough for Kennedy to have been a "great guy behind the scenes" as we have seen him referred to even by his political opponents. It is also not praiseworthy to put a Catholic rhetorical veneer on his leftist politics that did nothing to advance true justice as the Church sees it or to advance the peace of Christ in this world. Every indication of Senator Kennedy's career, every public appearance, every sound bite showed an acerbic, divisive and partisan political hack for whom party politics were much more infallible than Church doctrines. Whatever one's political affiliation, if one is only "Catholic" to the extent that his faith rhymes with his party line, then his Catholicism is a fraud.

As the Scriptures remind us, there is a time for everything under the sun. This, now, is the time for honesty about our Faith and about those who are called to express it in the public forum. If we do not remind ourselves of the necessity of public confession for public sins such as Senator Kennedy was guilty of, then we are negligent in our embrace of the Faith and we are part of the problem. As Pope Benedict has reminded us recently, charity without truth can easily become mere sentimentality, and we must not fall into that error. A Catholic show of charity for the family must not eclipse the truth that is required of all with eyes to see and ears to hear.

Senator Kennedy needs to be sent to the afterlife with a private, family-only funeral and the prayers of the Church for the salvation of his immortal soul. He will not be missed by the unborn who he betrayed time and time again, nor by the rest of us who are laboring to undo the scandalous example of Catholicism that he gave to three generations of Americans.

Sincerely,
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International

SWEDEN SLAMS ISRAEL, LIES
A Swedish newspaper admitted that, a story it published, where it's reporter in the Palestinian territories passed on an old Palestinian libel, that Israeli troops regularly killed Palestinians to steal their organs for transplants, was false. When the article was published a week earlier, there was outrage in Israel, and jubilation in the Arab world. The Israelis demanded proof, and the Arabs didn't care (and never did when it came to stories like this). The Swedes found that there was no proof, and the editor of the newspaper apologized. But Europeans are becoming more tolerant of these anti-Semitic slurs. Many Israelis see the pattern of violent anti-Semitism, which last peaked during World War II, building again, as Europeans become more tolerant of violence against Israel, and Jews in general.

The Taliban, DeathCare, and Political Freedom

2009-08-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

THE TALIBAN IN NIGERIA
There has been another outbreak of pro-Taliban violence in the Moslem north. It all began with a group of "Nigerian Taliban" attacked a police station, apparently with the intention of stealing weapons and police equipment. The police defeated that attack, leaving 42 dead. More attacks against government buildings and Christians (churches and businesses), followed. The Islamic radicals belong to a group called Boko Haram (translates as "Western education is sinfull"), which is following in the footsteps of an earlier group called Al Sunna wal Jamma. But many young Nigerians, angry at the corruption and resulting economic malaise (and unemployment) have joined in the violence, and some light looting.

All this has happened before. The pro-Taliban Al Sunna wal Jamma group was founded five years ago by Moslem university students, apparently with some foreign money. But it was mostly just another expression of the Islamic radicalism that was becoming popular up north. This movement pushed the imposition of Sharia (Islamic) law in the north, as a means of dealing with the corruption in government, and society in general. Many northern states actually switched to Sharia law, but the corruption remained, now cloaked in Islamic rectitude. Thus the Islamic radical movements survived, but were unable to muster the armed strength to take on the police or army. The last flare up was in late 2007. Earlier that year, a northern newspaper editor had been caught taking $300,000 in payments from Sudanese sources, to publish pro-Islamic radical material. There have been few attempts by Islamic radicals to move into Nigeria, and all have failed so far. The government has generally ignored the religious activities of the "Nigerian Taliban", and their efforts to get people to live a righteous, austere, Moslem lifestyle. That don't really fly in Nigeria, much to the frustration of local Islamic radicals. An armed uprising in 2004 left several hundred dead, and the Nigerian Taliban broken, but not entirely destroyed. The current violence is their attempt at a comeback.

Updated
The fighting against the pro-Taliban radicals in the north continues, with over a hundred dead and many more wounded and arrested. Thousands of civilians, mainly Christians, have fled the violence. The Islamic radicals have been a constant, but not particularly threatening, problem in the north for years. To date, the biggest problem caused by the Islamic radicals was their halting of the polio eradication campaign several years ago (by spreading the rumor that the polio vaccine was actually part of a Western conspiracy to sterilize Moslem children.) This caused the polio to spread again in Nigeria, and several other countries. Thousands of additional Nigerian children got the disease, and hundreds were crippled or killed. Most parents figured out what was going on, and the vaccinations were allowed to continue. Although discredited by this, the Islamic radicals were undeterred, and have now gambled big on establishing an Islamic state by force.

FIVE FREEDOMS YOU WILL LOOSE IN HEALTH CARE "REFORM"
If you read the fine print in the Congressional plans, you'll find that a lot of cherished aspects of the current system would disappear.

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- In promoting his health-care agenda, President Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans -- and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform.

A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy's Health committee, contradict the President's assurances. To be sure, it isn't easy to comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage.

If you prize choosing your own cardiologist or urologist under your company's Preferred Provider Organization plan (PPO), if your employer rewards your non-smoking, healthy lifestyle with reduced premiums, if you love the bargain Health Savings Account (HSA) that insures you just for the essentials, or if you simply take comfort in the freedom to spend your own money for a policy that covers the newest drugs and diagnostic tests -- you may be shocked to learn that you could lose all of those good things under the rules proposed in the two bills that herald a health-care revolution.

In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage -- including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money -- but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can't have. It's a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.

Let's explore the five freedoms that Americans would lose under Obamacare:

1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan
The bills in both houses require that Americans purchase insurance through "qualified" plans offered by health-care "exchanges" that would be set up in each state. The rub is that the plans can't really compete based on what they offer. The reason: The federal government will impose a minimum list of benefits that each plan is required to offer.
0:00 /2:07Health reform and you

Today, many states require these "standard benefits packages" -- and they're a major cause for the rise in health-care costs. Every group, from chiropractors to alcohol-abuse counselors, do lobbying to get included. Connecticut, for example, requires reimbursement for hair transplants, hearing aids, and in vitro fertilization.

The Senate bill would require coverage for prescription drugs, mental-health benefits, and substance-abuse services. It also requires policies to insure "children" until the age of 26. That's just the starting list. The bills would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to add to the list of required benefits, based on recommendations from a committee of experts. Americans, therefore, wouldn't even know what's in their plans and what they're required to pay for, directly or indirectly, until after the bills become law.

2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs
As with the previous example, the Obama plan enshrines into federal law one of the worst features of state legislation: community rating. Eleven states, ranging from New York to Oregon, have some form of community rating. In its purest form, community rating requires that all patients pay the same rates for their level of coverage regardless of their age or medical condition.

Americans with pre-existing conditions need subsidies under any plan, but community rating is a dubious way to bring fairness to health care. The reason is twofold: First, it forces young people, who typically have lower incomes than older workers, to pay far more than their actual cost, and gives older workers, who can afford to pay more, a big discount. The state laws gouging the young are a major reason so many of them have joined the ranks of uninsured.

Under the Senate plan, insurers would be barred from charging any more than twice as much for one patient vs. any other patient with the same coverage. So if a 20-year-old who costs just $800 a year to insure is forced to pay $2,500, a 62-year-old who costs $7,500 would pay no more than $5,000.

Second, the bills would ban insurers from charging differing premiums based on the health of their customers. Again, that's understandable for folks with diabetes or cancer. But the bills would bar rewarding people who pursue a healthy lifestyle of exercise or a cholesterol-conscious diet. That's hardly a formula for lower costs. It's as if car insurers had to charge the same rates to safe drivers as to chronic speeders with a history of accidents.

3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage
The bills threaten to eliminate the one part of the market truly driven by consumers spending their own money. That's what makes a market, and health care needs more of it, not less.

Hundreds of companies now offer Health Savings Accounts to about 5 million employees. Those workers deposit tax-free money in the accounts and get a matching contribution from their employer. They can use the funds to buy a high-deductible plan -- say for major medical costs over $12,000. Preventive care is reimbursed, but patients pay all other routine doctor visits and tests with their own money from the HSA account. As a result, HSA users are far more cost-conscious than customers who are reimbursed for the majority of their care.

The bills seriously endanger the trend toward consumer-driven care in general. By requiring minimum packages, they would prevent patients from choosing stripped-down plans that cover only major medical expenses. "The government could set extremely low deductibles that would eliminate HSAs," says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free-market research group. "And they could do it after the bills are passed."

4. Freedom to keep your existing plan
This is the freedom that the President keeps emphasizing. Yet the bills appear to say otherwise. It's worth diving into the weeds -- the territory where most pundits and politicians don't seem to have ventured.

The legislation divides the insured into two main groups, and those two groups are treated differently with respect to their current plans. The first are employees covered by the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974. ERISA regulates companies that are self-insured, meaning they pay claims out of their cash flow, and don't have real insurance. Those are the GEs (GE, Fortune 500) and Time Warners (TWX, Fortune 500) and most other big companies.

The House bill states that employees covered by ERISA plans are "grandfathered." Under ERISA, the plans can do pretty much what they want -- they're exempt from standard packages and community rating and can reward employees for healthy lifestyles even in restrictive states.

But read on.

The bill gives ERISA employers a five-year grace period when they can keep offering plans free from the restrictions of the "qualified" policies offered on the exchanges. But after five years, they would have to offer only approved plans, with the myriad rules we've already discussed. So for Americans in large corporations, "keeping your own plan" has a strict deadline. In five years, like it or not, you'll get dumped into the exchange. As we'll see, it could happen a lot earlier.

The outlook is worse for the second group. It encompasses employees who aren't under ERISA but get actual insurance either on their own or through small businesses. After the legislation passes, all insurers that offer a wide range of plans to these employees will be forced to offer only "qualified" plans to new customers, via the exchanges.

The employees who got their coverage before the law goes into effect can keep their plans, but once again, there's a catch. If the plan changes in any way -- by altering co-pays, deductibles, or even switching coverage for this or that drug -- the employee must drop out and shop through the exchange. Since these plans generally change their policies every year, it's likely that millions of employees will lose their plans in 12 months.

5. Freedom to choose your doctors
The Senate bill requires that Americans buying through the exchanges -- and as we've seen, that will soon be most Americans -- must get their care through something called "medical home." Medical home is similar to an HMO. You're assigned a primary care doctor, and the doctor controls your access to specialists. The primary care physicians will decide which services, like MRIs and other diagnostic scans, are best for you, and will decide when you really need to see a cardiologists or orthopedists.

Under the proposals, the gatekeepers would theoretically guide patients to tests and treatments that have proved most cost-effective. The danger is that doctors will be financially rewarded for denying care, as were HMO physicians more than a decade ago. It was consumer outrage over despotic gatekeepers that made the HMOs so unpopular, and killed what was billed as the solution to America's health-care cost explosion.

The bills do not specifically rule out fee-for-service plans as options to be offered through the exchanges. But remember, those plans -- if they exist -- would be barred from charging sick or elderly patients more than young and healthy ones. So patients would be inclined to game the system, staying in the HMO while they're healthy and switching to fee-for-service when they become seriously ill. "That would kill fee-for-service in a hurry," says Goodman.

In reality, the flexible, employer-based plans that now dominate the landscape, and that Americans so cherish, could disappear far faster than the 5 year "grace period" that's barely being discussed.

Companies would have the option of paying an 8% payroll tax into a fund that pays for coverage for Americans who aren't covered by their employers. It won't happen right away -- large companies must wait a couple of years before they opt out. But it will happen, since it's likely that the tax will rise a lot more slowly than corporate health-care costs, especially since they'll be lobbying Washington to keep the tax under control in the righteous name of job creation.

The best solution is to move to a let-freedom-ring regime of high deductibles, no community rating, no standard benefits, and cross-state shopping for bargains (another market-based reform that's strictly taboo in the bills). I'll propose my own solution in another piece soon on Fortune.com. For now, we suffer with a flawed health-care system, but we still have our Five Freedoms. Call them the Five Endangered Freedoms.

WHY I DON'T LIKE OBAMA
Increased military in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of reduction, partial birth abortion, increased foreclosures, increased jobless, increased homeless, increased deficit, apologies to Europe for our brave who died fighting for them, bowing to the Saudi king, total disregard for the constitution, no child left behind... left behind, too many czars, job creation only in government and not one single job for those who PAY the way for said government, 300,000 plus photo shoot, billions of bailout into the pockets of the wealthy who ended up declaring chapter 11 and pocketing OUR cash, deciding to close Gitmo and bring terrorists onto American soil (blasphemy) to further corrupt our dangerous inmates who may one day be released with a new mission in life, Pelosi calling our CIA lairs while she knew about waterboarding also putting our military at risk, hiring tax theives, not producing birth cert. proposing ending veterans health care, government control of corporations and banks.

Also, I was thinking of exercising my freedom of speech and political rights yesterday, considering buying a bumper sticker. Then I realized that if I actually put an "Impeach Obama" bumper sticker on my car, I would get shot or my car vandalized. If I wear an anti-Obama tee-shirt, I will be subjecting myself and whoever is with me, to danger. Here in Washington state, the Republicans citizens have to be quiet or be attacked. Whoever dares raise their voice and express an opinion against this president or the Democrats in general, will do so at their own peril. I remember a time when America was a free country. I remember when we were allowed to voice our opinions freely and do so with safety. We ALL had a right to free speech. That freedom now is reserved only for the Democrats. ONE opinion is allowed and All others will be attacked and destroyed. America is free falling into what China and Russia have been all these years. We have a dictatorship - The Democrat SOCIALIST Party.

The REAL Dr. Evil

2009-07-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

Although I normally do not blame individuals for many of the worlds' problems, nor do I blame Jews (whom I love) for these problems like so many anti-Semites do, I have discovered a real-life Dr. Evil; someone who is trying to remake the world in his own image. Here he is:

Mr. Soros is an evil industrialist billionaire who uses his vast amounts of money to cook up insane schemes to control the United States and the world, through dirty politics and "foundations" like MoveOn.org. He is extraordinarily wealthy but he still reaches for as much power as he can get, just for the thrill of it. Flat out, Soros is one of the most evil individuals in the world, seeking to meddle in the affairs of government and control the "little people" for whom he has no small amount of disdain. A few examples of his own personal goals are listed below:

*Reduction of the Earth's population to "sustainable levels" (through global genocide if necessary) and especially through government-funded abortions at the highest rates possible,

*Total domination of the "little man" by global government organizations like the United Nations (no individual rights, only group rights will be allowed),

*Promotion of widespread homosexuality,

*Decriminalization of drug use (regardless of the consequences to others),

A more detailed example of how Mr. Soros is an agent of evil (and suffering) is his promotion of legalized drugs, from the "low end" marijuana to hard-core herion, he would like to see them all made legal. However, anyone who has a family member that has a history of drug abuse can tell you of the misery and fear involved with drugs, and how awful it really is. Even if the person "only does it to themselves" (as the argument goes) the fallout into other people's lives is just too gross, and unfair. People who want the decriminalization of drugs always lie about the intended effects of ending the laws against drug use. For example, when heroin use was legalized in the United Kingdom in the 1970s, its use skyrocketed (exactly the opposite of what its promoters said would happen) and the government had to recriminalize it a few years later to stop the drug epidemic from expanding beyond control and causing nation-wide chaos and disruption. Its availability allowed the use of heroin in the UK to expand dramatically, even though the "provider" was the government. In the end such experiments always end in disaster; from Switzerland to the Netherlands, legalizing drugs has been tried and it failed utterly.

Evil financier George Soros has also used the globalized economy tro wreak havoc on dozens of nations including:

ENGLAND
Soros has also made a fortune by high-stakes gambles such as currency speculation in the world economy. In 1992, for example, he wagered $10 billion that by concerted attack he could devalue the British Pound. He won, pocketed at least $1.1 billion profit in a single day, and ever since has been called “the man who broke the Bank of England.”

In the process of destroying the purchasing power of the British Pound, Soros dealt a political blow to the government of British Prime Minister John Major from which the Tory Party has yet to recover. This is the same kind of damage he hopes to inflict in 2004 on America’s Republican Party.

FRANCE
In 1988, he was asked to join a takeover attempt of the French bank Société Générale. He declined to participate in the bid but did later buy a number of shares in the company. French authorities began an investigation in 1989, and in 2002 a French court ruled that it was insider trading, a felony conviction as defined under French securities laws and fined him $2.3 million, which was the amount that he made using the insider information. Punitive damages were not sought because of the delay in bringing the case to trial. Soros denied any wrongdoing and said news of the takeover was public knowledge. His insider trading conviction was upheld by the highest court in France on June 14, 2006 and he was banned from financial trading by the European Union, including his destructive currency speculation practices.

MYANMAR AND EAST ASIA
In 1997, during the Asian financial crisis, then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad accused Soros of using the wealth under his control to punish ASEAN for welcoming Myanmar as a member.

RUSSIA
The Russians claim Soros is a financial terrorist after he tried to destroy the Russian ruble (and the Russian economy), causing a near-50 percent devaluation of the ruble in 1998.

By far, the largest group Soros and his allies has infiltrated and taken over is the Democratic Party of the United States. It now totally adheres to a corporatist line and has purged from its leadership Dr. Howard Dean and replaced him with Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, a Democratic Leadership Council adherent. The Soros faction and its allies has also seen to it that Bill Richardson, Caroline Kennedy, and others who represent the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” have been shut out of the Obama administration. For Soros, his political operations in America are much the same as they are in places like Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, and other countries: divide, confuse the political sides, and conquer. In the case of alternative journalism operations, Soros’ operatives launch attacks, some of them highly personal, against bona fide independent journalists and question their sources and investigations. Soros’ agents of disinformation and influence have moved in to “manage” the stories about jailed Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman, the 2004 vote fraud in Ohio, the Turkish and Israeli intelligence penetration of the highest echelons of the U.S. government, the presence of Israeli spies among the accused 9/11 hijackers in the months prior to the terrorist attacks in 2001, and Russian-Israeli “Kosher Nostra” criminal activity from London to Kyiv and New York to Moscow. Overall, Soros’ operations are primarily focused on controlling the left through the use of censors and online gatekeepers in the media operations he funds. Recipients of Soros’ money are found running web sites, some of them well known; hosting TV and radio programs; and writing regularly for major periodicals. Soros has ingratiated himself to many on the Left but that was his goal. However, there are a number of progressives who are wise to Soros’ operations and will continue to expose them regardless of how many more billions he amasses from shorting stocks, speculating on national currencies, and destroying jobs.

SOROS' STRANGE WORLDVIEW
Here is a quote from former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, "George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and emerging nations to become 'open societies,' open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but—more important—tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior."

JEWISH
Even though he is Jewish, Soros promotes Palestinian nationalism and does not support the state of Israel. Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, called it “absolutely obscene” that Soros blames Israel and Jews for anti-Semitism and used the rhetoric of anti-Semites in doing so.

Most recently, Soros worked on the Euro, pushing the U.S. dollar down to a near all-time low. Soros has, in other words, caused you to pay more for every imported product you buy.

ASSASSINATE GEORGE BUSH
In an interview with The Washington Post on November 11, 2003,[29] Soros said that removing President George W. Bush from office was the "central focus of my life" and "a matter of life and death." He said he would sacrifice his entire fortune to defeat President Bush, "if someone guaranteed it." That sounds like an assassination plot to me....

SUPPORTING TERRORIST LAWYERS
According to National Review the Open Society Institute gave $20,000 in September 2002 to the Defense Committee of Lynne Stewart, the lawyer who has defended alleged terrorists in court and was sentenced to 2? years in prison for "providing material support for a terrorist conspiracy" via a press conference for a client. Lynee Stewart was caught on camera giving aid and support to her terrorist client, including screaming and speaking loudly so the interview room camera mikes couldn't pick up what her terrorist client wa saying on the cellphone she allowed him to use, which was illegal. She did this several times over several weeks before she was arrested.

Finally, After Bush's reelection in 2004, Soros and other wealthy liberal political donors backed a new political fundraising group called Democracy Alliance which aims to support the goals of the U.S. Democratic Party. His aim is to destroy the Republican Party and Christians in America since they oppose his pro-drug and pro-death agenda. George Soros truly is a modern-day Dr. Evil. He works to disband the American family system. He would like to see America brought down. To this end he works hand-in-glove with the ACLU. Soros made billions (yes, billions) conspiring with some giant banks to cause a severe recession in East Asia, an unholy endeavor in which they succeeded, throwing millions of Asians into poverty including, of course, millions of Catholic Filipinos. That to me is evil, pure and simple....

UPCOMING MILITARY ROBOTS COULD FEED ON DEAD BODIES
Wednesday, July 15, 2009

It could be a combination of 19th-century mechanics, 21st-century technology — and a 20th-century horror movie.

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable," reads the company's Web site.

That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.

EATR will be powered by the Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone Power Technology of Pompano Beach, Fla., which uses an "external combustion chamber" burning up fuel to heat up water in a closed loop, generating electricity.

The advantages to the military are that the robot would be extremely flexible in fuel sources and could roam on its own for months, even years, without having to be refueled or serviced.

Upon the EATR platform, the Pentagon could build all sorts of things — a transport, an ambulance, a communications center, even a mobile gunship.

In press materials, Robotic Technology presents EATR as an essentially benign artificial creature that fills its belly through "foraging," despite the obvious military purpose.

Not Green, Red!

2009-07-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

Tilting at Green Windmills
By George Will

WASHINGTON -- The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating "green jobs" in "alternative energy" even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1 percent -- more than double the European Union average -- partly because of spending on such jobs?

Calzada, 36, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report which, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda, and for some budget assumptions that are dependent upon it.

Calzada says Spain's torrential spending -- no other nation has so aggressively supported production of electricity from renewable sources -- on wind farms and other forms of alternative energy has indeed created jobs. But Calzada's report concludes that they often are temporary and have received $752,000 to $800,000 each in subsidies -- wind industry jobs cost even more, $1.4 million each. And each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation -- sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency -- of capital. (European media regularly report "eco-corruption" leaving a "footprint of sleaze" -- gaming the subsidy systems, profiteering from land sales for wind farms, etc.) Calzada says the creation of jobs in alternative energy has subtracted about 110,000 jobs from elsewhere in Spain's economy.

The president's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was asked about the report's contention that the political diversion of capital into green jobs has cost Spain jobs. The White House transcript contained this exchange:

Gibbs: "It seems weird that we're importing wind turbine parts from Spain in order to build -- to meet renewable energy demand here if that were even remotely the case."

Questioner: "Is that a suggestion that his study is simply flat wrong?"

Gibbs: "I haven't read the study, but I think, yes."

Questioner: "Well, then. (Laughter.)"

Actually, what is weird is this idea: A sobering report about Spain's experience must be false because otherwise the behavior of some American importers, seeking to cash in on the U.S. government's promotion of wind power, might be participating in an economically unproductive project.

It is true that Calzada has come to conclusions that he, as a libertarian, finds ideologically congenial. And his study was supported by a like-minded U.S. think tank (the Institute for Energy Research, for which this columnist has given a paid speech). Still, it is notable that, rather than try to refute his report, many Spanish critics have impugned his patriotism for faulting something for which Spain has been praised by Obama and others.

Judge for yourself: Calzada's report can be read here. And here you can find similar conclusions in "Yellow Light on Green Jobs," a report by Republican Sen. Kit Bond, ranking member of the Subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy.

What matters most, however, is not that reports such as Calzada's and the Republicans' are right in every particular. It is, however, hardly counterintuitive that politically driven investments are economically counterproductive. Indeed, environmentalists with the courage of their convictions should argue that the point of such investments is to subordinate market rationality to the higher agenda of planetary salvation.

Still, one can be agnostic about both reports while being dismayed by the frequency with which such findings are ignored simply because they question policies that are so invested with righteousness that methodical economic reasoning about their costs and benefits seems unimportant. When the president speaks of "new green energy economies" creating "countless well-paying jobs," perhaps they really are countless, meaning incapable of being counted.

For fervent believers in governments' abilities to control the climate and in the urgent need for them to do so, believing is seeing: They see, through their ideological lenses, governments' green spending as always paying for itself. This is a free-lunch faith comparable to that of those few conservatives who believe that tax cuts always completely pay for themselves by stimulating compensating revenues from economic growth.

Windmills are iconic in the land of Don Quixote, whose tilting at them became emblematic of comic futility. Spain's new windmills are neither amusing nor emblematic of policies America should emulate. The cheerful and evidently unshakable confidence in such magical solutions to postulated problems is yet another manifestation -- Republicans are not immune: No Child Left Behind decrees that by 2014 all American students will be proficient in math and reading -- of what the late Sen. Pat Moynihan called "the leakage of reality from American life."

The Communist Past of the 'Green Jobs' Czar
By Sam Theodosopoulos
July 10, 2009 - 17:16 ET

The administration’s “Green Jobs” czar, Van Jones, has a “very checkered past” deep-rooted in radical politics, including black nationalism, anarchism, and communism. The broadcast network newscasts have mostly failed to report on Mr. Jones’s past political affiliations which are lock-step with the network’s downplay of coverage regarding President Obama’s associations with the former radical and terrorist William Ayers during the election.

At 6:47 a.m. EDT on the July 10 edition of “Fox and Friends,” Americans for Prosperity Policy Director Phil Kerpen, told interviewer Brian Kilmeade that Jones is “somebody who was involved in radical politics in San Francisco, “who was self-admittedly “radicalized in jail” and found “Communism and anarchism.” Kerpen compares Van Jones’s Communist past with his new quest for environmentalism and the creation of green jobs:

I think it’s pretty instructive what his past is...it’s the same sort of philosophy, the idea that government ought to be reordering society in accordance with some utopian vision that failed with communism and socialism, and will fail with this green jobs idea.

In an April 12, 2009 World Net Daily article titled “Will a “red” help blacks go green?”Aaron Klein reports that Jones himself stated in a 2005 interview his environmental activism was a means to fight for racial and class “justice,” and that he was a “rowdy black nationalist,” and a “communist.”

Because the administration’s “czars” do not go through congressional confirmation, and are therefore not scrutinized or vetted, many Americans have no idea who they are or where they come from.

Kudos to Fox News for bringing Van Jones’s controversial past and political ideology to light.

The following was aired on the July 10 edition of Fox and Friends:

BRIAN KILMEADE, co-host, “Fox and Friends”: Phil, we have a czar, he’s a green jobs czar, he’s Van Jones, he’s got a deep history in communism.

PHIL KERPEN, AFP Policy Director: He does. He has a very checkered past. This is somebody who was involved in radical politics out in San Francisco, California. He was arrested during a demonstration/riot following the Rodney King verdict. And he said himself that he was radicalized in jail, that he found communism and anarchism. And then he started a pretty radical, kind of communist, socialist, utopian group that was supposed to end all racism though central planning. And then he decided that the real path the sort of progressive nirvana, was the this green jobs idea. I think its pretty instructive what his past is, I am not just trying to smear the guy, but I think it’s the same sort of philosophy, the idea that government ought to be reordering society in accordance with some utopian vision that failed with communism and socialism, and will fail with this green jobs idea. We are imposing a top-down vision.

GRETCHEN CARLSON, co-host: And more importantly for America Phil, is the fact that we already have an Energy Secretary, who by the way had to go through Congress to be approved. And the reason that these czars, you don’t know anything about them, is because they don’t have to go through that process.

Why We'll Leave L.A.
The business climate is worse than the air quality.
By RICK NEWCOMBE

If New Yorkers fantasize that doing business here in Los Angeles would be less of a headache, forget about it. This city is fast becoming a job-killing machine. It's no accident the unemployment rate is a frightening 11.4% and climbing.

I never could have imagined that, after living here for more than three decades, I would be filing a lawsuit against my beloved Los Angeles and making plans for my company, Creators Syndicate, to move elsewhere.

But we have no choice. The city's bureaucrats rival Stalin's apparatchiks in issuing decrees, rescinding them, and then punishing citizens for having followed them in the first place.

I founded Creators Syndicate in 1987, and we have represented hundreds of important writers, syndicating their columns to newspapers and Web sites around the world. The most famous include Hillary Clinton, who, like Eleanor Roosevelt, wrote a syndicated column when she was first lady. Another star was the advice columnist Ann Landers, once described by "The World Almanac" as "the most influential woman in America." Other Creators columnists include Bill O'Reilly, Susan Estrich, Thomas Sowell, Roland Martin and Michelle Malkin -- plus Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonists and your favorite comic strips.

From the beginning, we've been headquartered in Los Angeles. But 15 years ago we had a dispute with the city over our business tax classification. The city argued that we should be in an "occupations and professions" classification that has an extremely high tax rate, while we fought for a "wholesale and retail" classification with a much lower rate. The city forced us to invest a small fortune in legal fees over two years, but we felt it was worth it in order to establish the correct classification once and for all.

After enduring a series of bureaucratic hearings, we anxiously awaited a ruling to find out what our tax rate would be. Everything was at stake. We had already decided that if we lost, we would move.

You can imagine how relieved we were on July 1, 1994, when the ruling was issued. We won, and firmly planted our roots in the City of Angels and proceeded to build our business.

Everything was fine until the city started running out of money in 2007. Suddenly, the city announced that it was going to ignore its own ruling and reclassify us in the higher tax category. Even more incredible is the fact that the new classification was to be imposed retroactively to 2004 with interest and penalties. No explanation was given for the new classification, or for the city's decision to ignore its 1994 ruling.

Their official position is that the city is not bound by past rulings -- only taxpayers are. This is why we have been forced to file a lawsuit. We will let the courts decide whether it is legal for adverse rulings to apply only to taxpayers and not to the city.

We work with hundreds of outside agents, consultants, independent contractors and support services -- many of whom pay taxes to the city of Los Angeles. This spurs a job-creating ripple effect on the city's economy. Yet I suspect many companies like ours already have quietly left town in the face of the city's taxes and regulations. This would help explain the erosion of jobs.

Regardless of the outcome of our case, the arbitrary and capricious behavior of some bureaucrats is creating a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. If we win in court, the taxpayers of Los Angeles will have lost because all those tax dollars will have been wasted on needless litigation.

If we lose in court, the remaining taxpayers in Los Angeles will have lost because their burden will continue to swell as yet another business moves its jobs -- and taxpayers -- to another city.

As long as City Hall operates like a banana republic, why is anyone surprised that jobs have left the city in droves and Los Angeles is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy?

Mr. Newcombe is president of Creators Syndicate.

Sarah Palin: The Best is Yet to Come

2009-07-06T16:08:00.001-07:00

Sarah Palin: The Best is Yet to Come

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2009-06-26T23:21:00.000-07:00

How Democrats have Sabotaged US Missile Defenses
Over the last 50 years the Democratic party has continually sided against defending the United States against missile attack from any nation in the world. This suicidal policy was codified by the "MAD" policy of the 1960s and 1970s but in the 1980s Ronald Reagan refused to continue to believe in the good will of foreign countries to not fire their ballistic missiles at our country and our allies, and thus began funding a national missile defense plan. The inability to shoot down missiles that could easily rain down on US cities or our troops and allies abroad has deeply concerned the Republican party for decades and now, finally, the investment in this field is beginning to pay off (just in time too, I might add). However, the Democrats feel absolutely compelled to halt all missile defenses for this country, including railgun and laser defenses. Low-tech anti-ballistic missiles (ABM) systems have been around for years (the Patriot, C-RAM, THEL), but major advances like the Airborne Laser (ABL) and even the new ABM AMRAAM are now feasible, yet a few weeks ago the Democratic Congress voted to cut funding to the ABL the day after North Korea fired more rockets into East Asia. Leaving US cities, allies, and military forces naked to ballistic missile terrorism and blackmail doesn't seem to bother the Democratic party, and now that our cities like Honolulu are naked to North Korean missiles threats I am sure we will give them a few billion dollars to not fire them again, for awhile. I believe it is criminal in the extreme for the left-wing loons in Congress and the White House to gut US ABM defenses in the light of the hostile missile launches by the insane North Koreans. Also, the Obama administration threw the Europeans to the wolves by telling Russia we wouldn't install missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic like we had promised those two nations. This sort of insane defense policy only endangers millions of civilians and should be reversed immediately. Numerous ABM missiles defense systems are now mature and ready to significant deployment, like the Standard Missile 3, the ABL, the Centurion Phalanx system, and the THAAD system. It is critical that the United States fields lavish missile defenses in Asia ASAP to halt any further aggression and ballistic missile blackmail by either North Korea or China, reassuring our friends and allies we will protect them against any unfounded attacks by any power in the region.

Centurion System

Happenings in Iran
Things are moving very quickly in Iran, here are a few details:

Some 64 percent of the members of Parliament did not show up for a celebration of Ahmadinejad's victory. Even the speaker of parliament, including Speaker Ali Larijani, stayed away. No matter how the current unrest ends, Ahmadinejad is damaged goods as the Iranian president. Meanwhile, the government is arresting university faculty who openly support Mousavi. Iranians are being told, often obliquely and gently, to not criticize the government openly, or show any support for Mousavi and the demonstrators. Those who ignore this advice could be arrested, or worse.

The senior clergy are leaning on Mousavi to withdraw his challenge to the presidential election. Mousavi is being offered rewards (financial and otherwise) if he backs off, and dire punishment (death to him, and some family members as well) if he does not. So far, Mousavi has held his ground. But the offer still stands, as least as long as Mousavi is still alive. That is being aided by more and more government officials openly, or otherwise, siding with Mousavi. Many members of the government, and the clergy, are upset with the extent of the corruption and mismanagement among the ruling class.

Neither Mousavi, nor Ahmadinejad, are moderates. Both are hard core nationalists. In other words, both want nuclear weapons for Iran, the better to dominate the region, as Iran has done for over 3,000 years. Mousavi wants Iran to be strong, but he also calls for true democracy. That would mean taking political power away from the senior clergy. The ruling clerics are expected to fight this, if only because so many of them are corrupt, and don't want to become poor, and possibly get sent to prison. So it's a death match between the corrupt clergy (and their police state), and the majority of Iranians who are fed up and won't take it anymore.

The problem is that 60 percent of the 70 million Iranians were born after the 1979 revolution, and half of these young people have access to the Internet. They are tired of the corruption, and living in a police state run by religious leaders whose incompetence leaves over 20 percent of the young men unemployed. The demonstrations are mostly about corruption, inefficient government and phony democracy. Few are demonstrating against nuclear weapons, or Iranian foreign policy (which tends to make the neighbors nervous.)

Russian Military Spending: 2009
Russia is buying $42 billion of military equipment in 2009. This includes, in the first six months of this year; eight Su-27 and 12 MiG-29 fighters, three Topol-M ICBMs, one Soyuz space craft launcher, 20 tanks, at least a hundred other armored vehicles and over 2,000 trucks. Russia will spend about the same amount in the next two years, all in an effort to replace aging Cold War era equipment. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union would produce about ten times as much gear annually.

It was only three years ago, for the first time in fifteen years, that the Russian army began receiving significant quantities of new and refurbished equipment. The Russian army has been falling apart since the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. That's fifteen years of practically no new equipment, and a vast downsizing. The Cold War force of 175 divisions dwindled to 25, plus 21 independent brigades (equivalent to another five divisions.) These divisions are, for the most part, very under strength. The Russian army is now smaller than the American army, and much less capable.

Most of the 1991 era equipment has been scrapped or cannibalized to keep the new, now quite miniscule (320,000 troops) army going at all. Most of the trucks and tanks are twenty years old, or more. Tiny defense budgets over the last decade were barely able to buy food for the troops, much less fuel for training exercises. For a generation now, tank crews trained in vehicles that rarely moved, and engines were only started to see if they were still functional, not to move the vehicle around.

Now the army is getting enough gear to equip some rapid reaction forces, and get the assembly lines going for a new generation of weapon. To that end, in 2006 the troops received 30 new T-90 tanks, and another 180 refurbished, Cold War vintage, T-72s and T-80s. Some new BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles were obtained, as well as lighter, BMDs for the parachute and air-assault units.

Noting the success of the American Stryker, a hundred new BTR-80 and BTR-90 vehicles were purchased. In addition, some 600 refurbished BMPs, BMDs and BTRs were also put into service that year. Twenty anti-aircraft missile batteries received new, modernized missiles. Some of these batteries had not fired a missile in years, because the only ones they had had "aged out" (become too old to safely fire.)

The army received new radios, field uniforms, protective vests and small arms. More powerful RPGs and grenades were purchased as well. Perhaps most telling, large quantities of small arms ammunition were made available for training. This is another side-effect of the war in Iraq, where Russian planners noted how the American army successfully dealt with training deficiencies by greatly increasing live fire training.

The tactical air force, which supports the army, received about fifty refurbished and upgraded aircraft (Su-24 bombers, Su-25 ground attack aircraft, plus some Su-27 and MiG-29 fighters). Ten new Mi-28 and Ka-50 helicopter gunships were purchased as well.

But most of the $11 billion being spent on new weapons and equipment in 2006 went for nuclear weapons systems, including missile carrying subs and new ICBMs. With such a miniscule army, and such ramshackle equipment, nukes are now the main defense of the largest country in the world.

US DEFENSE SPENDING: 2009

Defending Hawaii From North Korean Attack
American officials have responded to North Korea's preparations for a new IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile) test by announcing that sufficient anti-missile systems are being sent to Hawaii to deal with any potential North Korea success with their Taepodong 2 missile. Actually, the U.S. already has anti-missile systems in Hawaii (AEGIS SM-3 and THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), and it's unlikely that North Korea has a working IRBM that could travel 7,300 kilometers and hit something in Hawaii.

North Korea has been working on Taepodong 2 for over a decade. An earlier model, launched in1998, went about 1,500 kilometers. A 2006 test barely got off the ground before crashing. A test two months ago only went about 3,000 kilometers. The Taepodong 2 being readied for launch now might make it out to 7,000 kilometers or more. But that's unlikely. So it's a good American PR move to point out that Hawaii is being made safe.

The anti-missile system already in Hawaii are some THAAD systems at the Pacific Missile Range Facility. Last year, the U.S. Army began forming the first of four THAAD batteries. This unit will be ready for combat next year. The other three batteries will be in service within four years. Two years ago, there was a successful test of THAAD (a SCUD type target was destroyed in flight) using a crew of soldiers for the first time, and not manufacturer technicians, to operate the system.

Each THAAD battery will have 24 missiles, three launchers and a fire control communications system. This will include an X-Band radar. The gear for each battery will cost $310 million. The 18 foot long THAAD missiles weigh 1,400 pounds. The range of THAAD is 200 kilometers, max altitude is 150 kilometers, and it is intended for short (like SCUD) or medium range (up to 2,000 kilometer) range ballistic missiles. Tweaks to the system are supposed to make it capable of handling something like the Taepodong 2. THAAD has been in development for two decades. Ultimately, the army would like to buy at least 18 launchers, 1,400 missiles, and 18 radars.

The navy has also modified its Standard anti-aircraft missile system to take down something like the Taepodong 2. This system, the RIM-161A, also known as the Standard Missile 3 (or SM-3), has a longer range than THAAD (over 500 kilometers) and max altitude of 160 kilometers. The SM 3 missiles cost over three million dollars each. The SM 3 has four stages. The first two stages boost the interceptor out of the atmosphere. The third stage fires twice to boost the interceptor farther beyond the earth's atmosphere. Prior to each motor firing it takes a GPS reading to correct course for approaching the target. The fourth stage is the 20 pound LEAP kill vehicle, which uses infrared sensors to close on the target and ram it. The AEGIS/SM-3 combination has had numerous successful tests, and recently shot down a low orbit satellite.

The SM-3 operates from warships (cruisers and destroyers that have been equipped with the special software that enables the AEGIS radar system to detect and track incoming ballistic missiles.) There are several AEGIS equipped ships either near Hawaii, or close enough to reach the islands in less than a week.

Obama Popularity June 2009

The UN, Newt Gingrich, and US Soldiers

2009-06-18T20:45:00.000-07:00

Why "Norming" is Un-American (and why Democrats embrace it)
"Norming" is a term that is applied to the sneaky way the United Nation forces the USA to agree to international agreements that are damaging to individual US citizens rights and freedoms that we have fought so hard to protect. The left-wing elements in our society love "norming" because they haven't been able to legislate successfully their extreme radical agenda, so they turn to the UN to get things passed that they cannot get passed within Congress. When they fail in the state legislatures or the Congress, say on gun control, they try and take it internationally. They negotiate these deals as treaties, which the USA is forced to comply with. Even the US Supreme Court has said UN law (or "international law") trumps local US laws, always superseding our laws for "global laws". When they pass these awful treaties, they then bring them back to the United States and say, "You have to ratify this treaty. One hundred and eighty other countries have already passed it, how can the USA be isolated?" We are a democracy and we can make up our own minds; we don't need to be "normed" by the international community, many of which have agendas that are completely against ours. These leftist groups in the USA, including many NGOs hostile to the US way of life, would much rather lobby the UN than the Congress. They see going outside the American constitutional system as the best way to advance their agenda.That is why, to me, most Democrats and leftist are un-American, because of their un-wavering support for the UN and using against our own citizens in an un-democratic way....

Muslim Terrorist Kills and Wounds Soldiers on US Soil
by Jack Lee

The FBI has been doing a fabulous job tracking the activities of potential Muslim terrorists that exist within the United States and they’ve stopped a number of attacks before they could be carried out. However, they can’t stop them all, as evidenced by one Abdulhakim Muhammad, age 23, of Little Rock, Ark.

Abdulhakim Muhammad was a simmering time bomb of hate, filled with anti-american, anti-military aggression. This much he has made clear by his own statements and we know he was recently in Yemen where he was using a Somali passport. Muhammad admitted shooting the two young soldiers yesterday for what he believed American soldiers had done to Muslims.

In 2003 a Muslim convert and U.S. soldier,threw grenades into three tents at a 101st Airborne command center in Kuwait, killing one fellow serviceman and wounding 15, three of them seriously. The motive was he didn’t want the US military to attack fellow Muslims. Born Mark “Fidel” Kools, Akbar was re-named when his mother remarried and converted to Islam. Just before trial Akbar smuggled a pair of scissors out of a conference room and then asked to use the restroom. When the Officer removed Akbar’s restraints he then stabbed the officer in the shoulder and neck with the scissors before being wrestled to the ground by another Officer. This attack was not allowed to be admitted as evidence by the army judge, during sentencing.

Currently at least 22 Muslim paramilitary training compounds exist within the USA that are managed by a radical Pakistani cleric suspected of terrorist activities within Pakistan. The M/O of the organization is to recruit black male converts from within US prisons. Upon release they are given religious and paramilitary training at the Muslim compounds that stretch from coast to coast, two are located in California. The compounds and their so-called religious activities are protected under the Constitution. A number of their members have been returned to prison for parole violations. They remain under close watch.”

Murdering US soldiers on the streets - the drawbacks of using law enforcement as terrorist policy
More information is coming out about the assassination of a US soldier at a Little Rock recruiting booth.

Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, aka Carlos Leon Bledsoe and a recent convert to Islam, was already on the FBI’s Joint Terrorist Task Force radar since his return from Yemen. He was, in fact, arrested at that time and had a fake Somali passport.

Bledsoe had all the hallmarks of a budding terrorist operative in the US, with friends in all the right global locations, ripe with jihad movements….Yemen, Somalia and Columbus, Ohio.

But investigations take time to compile evidence enough to hold, and convict, a suspected terrorist. This isn’t like picking him up on a foreign battlefield. With Constitutional rights in place, law enforcement can be the only option for terrorists who operate on US soil. And the very nature of that method of counterterrorism often requires the death of victims - such as these fine young men, cut down on American streets - when evidence is insufficient to thwart a plot in advance.

And now, officials say, the FBI and the CIA are engaged in an intense effort to reconstruct Muhammad’s path to extremism — and allegedly to murder — taking apart his life, examining his friendships, educational records, travel within the United States and possible contacts with extremists overseas.

Though police have told ABC News that a preliminary investigation indicated that Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 24, acted alone, authorities are trying to determine whether others were involved in the Monday shooting that also critically wounded another soldier. Muhammad has pleaded not guilty to the shooting.

Police could only guess at the motive for Muhammad’s attack.

“We believe that it’s associated with his disagreement over the military operations,” Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas told The Associated Press.

According to a police report, Muhammad told police that he saw two uniformed U.S. soldiers in front of the recruiting office before he shot and killed Pvt. William Long, 23, and wounded Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, while they were taking a break outside the U.S. Army recruiting station where they both worked.

Bledsoe didn’t resist arrest, but he was prepared for a shooting joy ride that day. At his immediate disposal was approximately 200 rounds of ammunition. In his car was magazines, all loaded up with 100 additional rounds of ammo and stashed in a vest, an SKS rifle, two pistols and two military books.

According to the video report at the ABC story linked above, he was “hunting” US soldiers. And most of our armed forces service men and women are not wandering around US streets in battle-ready status. This, of course, makes them sitting ducks for wannabe-jihadis like Bledsoe.

It might be noted that this is the environment which Obama wishes to import Gitmo detainees, despite polls saying this is not the wishes of the nation.

Add to this, the pressure Obama has been putting on the nation to accept the Chinese Uyghur detainees that so many say are proven not to be enemies of the US. Perhaps it’s timely to find out that these “harmless non-terrorists” don’t hold any love for the US, and instead say we are worse than Nazis.

Oh yeah… bring ‘em here.

I swear this parallel universe I seem to be existing in today is becoming more and more like a nanny-induced, prozac walking nightmare. Has all logic escaped our elected officials?

Bledsoe is a perfect example of why these Gitmo detainees should not be tried in the US judicial system, nor released in our nation in the event they are acquitted for evidence the courts are not allowed to use. The Uyghur detainees, who we were told are harmless and not antagonistic, have proven themselves to be filled with hate.

It is obvious that we cannot trust the ACLU detainee lawyers for facts, nor our elected officials for wise decisions. And should we attempt to do so, we might find ourselves with many more US soldiers assassinated on the streets, unable to defend themselves because of nanny gun laws that apparently only apply to the good guys.

A Rising Anti-Government Tide
By Newt Gingrich
Friday, May 22, 2009

Americans should look carefully at the anti-politician, anti-government mood exhibited in California this week. Just as Proposition 13 and the anti-tax movement of 1978 were the forerunners of the Reagan presidential victory, so the results of Tuesday's vote are a harbinger of things to come.

The repudiation of the California establishment in the series of initiative defeats could hardly have been more decisive. Five taxing and spending measures were rejected by 62.6 to 66.4 percent of the voters. That is a consistent majority of enormous potential. An even larger majority, 73.9 percent, approved the proposition limiting elected officials' salaries when there is a deficit.

This vote is the second great signal that the American people are getting fed up with corrupt politicians, arrogant bureaucrats, greedy interests and incompetent, destructive government.

The elites ridiculed or ignored the first harbinger of rebellion, the recent tea parties. While it will be harder to ignore this massive anti-tax, anti-spending vote, they will attempt to do just that.

Voters in our largest state spoke unambiguously, but politicians and lobbyists in Sacramento are ignoring or rejecting the voters' will, just as they are in Albany and Trenton. The states with huge government machines have basically moved beyond the control of the people. They have become castles of corruption, favoritism and wastefulness. These state governments are run by lobbyists for the various unions through bureaucracies seeking to impose the values of a militant left. Elections have become so rigged by big money and clever incumbents that the process of self-government is threatened.

Sacramento politicians will now reject the voters' call for lower taxes and less spending and embrace the union-lobbyist-bureaucrat machine that is running California into the ground, crippling its economy and cheating residents. This model of high-tax, big-spending inefficiency has already driven thousands of successful Californians out of the state (taking with them an estimated $11 billion in annual tax revenue). The exodus will continue.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a smart, tough, charismatic leader who has been forced to submit to policies he knows are ruining California on behalf of interests he knows are cheating the state. His failure to tame the union-lobbyist-bureaucrat machine that owns the legislature is a symptom of just how powerful it is.

Albany is even more corrupt and dysfunctional. The special interests that own the legislators in both parties have been exploiting New York for two generations. They have impoverished the Upstate region to the point where it is a vast zone of no jobs and no opportunities. Their predatory tax and bureaucratic union behavior is beginning to cripple New York City. More and more successful New Yorkers are leaving the state. In the face of multiple crises, Gov. David Paterson has shown himself incapable of carrying out reform.

In other words, the political machines in California and New York are wrecking the states' economies and driving out successful residents. But the machines don't care because all they want to do is own the wreckage.

This system of ruining communities on behalf of interest groups first appeared in Detroit. Bad government, bad politicians and bad policies drove a city that had, in 1950, the highest per capita income of any large American city to No. 62 in per capita income as of 2007. The population has declined from 1.8 million to fewer than 950,000. Recently, 1,800 homes were sold for under $10,000 each. The human cost of bad politics and bad government in Detroit is staggering.

Now President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid want to impose on the nation this style of politics in which interest groups, politicians and bureaucracies dominate. Look at their record: a $787 billion stimulus no elected official had read, 8,000 earmarks, an Environmental Protection Agency plan to control the economy through carbon regulations, the government threatening retaliation against those who would protect their property rights against theft in the Chrysler bailout -- again and again, this team is moving toward a government that owns the country rather than a government that is owned by the people.

Watch Sacramento politicians and interest groups work to overrule the people of California. Watch Albany politicians and interest groups continue to undermine the economy of New York. Watch the arrogance of the elites in Washington as they impose their costs and special deals on the American people.

Then look again at the 62 percent-plus majority in California in favor of smaller government and lower taxes.

In the great tradition of political movements rising against arrogant, corrupt elites, there will soon be a party of people rooting out the party of government. This party may be Republican; it may be Democratic; in some states it may be a third party. The politicians have been warned.

The writer, a Republican, was speaker of the House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He is chairman of the Gingrich Group, a communications and consulting firm, and general chairman of American Solutions for Winning the Future.

Obama Lays Road for Israels' Destruction

2009-05-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

THE DEATH OF ISRAEL
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on May 24, 2009

From Caroline Glick, deputy editor and op-ed writer for the Jerusalem Post, comes alarming news. An expert on Arab-Israeli relations with excellent sources deep inside Netanyahu's government, she reports that CIA chief Leon Panetta, who recently took time out from his day job (feuding with Nancy Pelosi) to travel to Israel "read the riot act" to the government warning against an attack on Iran.

More ominously, Glick reports (likely from sources high up in the Israeli government) that the Obama administration has all but accepted as irreversible and unavoidable fact that Iran will soon develop nuclear weapons. She writes, "...we have learned that the [Obama] administration has made its peace with Iran's nuclear aspirations. Senior administration officials acknowledge as much in off-record briefings. It is true, they say, that Iran may exploit its future talks with the US to run down the clock before they test a nuclear weapon. But, they add, if that happens, the US will simply have to live with a nuclear-armed mullocracy."

She goes on to write that the Obama administration is desperate to stop Israel from attacking Iran writing that "as far as the [Obama] administration is concerned, if Israel could just leave Iran's nuclear installations alone, Iran would behave itself." She notes that American officials would regard any harm to American interests that flowed from an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as Israel's doing, not Iran's.

In classic Stockholm Syndrome fashion, the Obama administration is empathizing more with the Iranian leaders who are holding Israel hostage than with the nation that may be wiped off the map if Iran acquires the bomb.

Obama's end-of-the-year deadline for Iranian talks aimed at stopping its progress toward nuclear weapons is just window dressing without the threat of military action. As Metternich wrote "diplomacy without force is like music without instruments." By warning only of possible strengthening of economic sanctions if the talks do not progress, Obama is making an empty threat. The sanctions will likely have no effect because Russia and China will not let the United Nations act as it must if it is to deter Iranian nuclear weapons.

All this means is that Israel's life is in danger. If Iran gets the bomb, it will use it to kill six million Jews. No threat of retaliation will make the slightest difference. One cannot deter a suicide bomber with the threat of death. Nor can one deter a theocracy bent on meriting admission to heaven and its virgins by one glorious act of violence. Iran would probably not launch the bomb itself, anyway, but would give it to its puppet terrorists to send to Israel so it could deny responsibility. Obama, bent on appeasement, would likely not retaliate with nuclear weapons. And Israel will be dead and gone.

Those sunshine Jewish patriots who voted for Obama must realize that we, as Jews, are witnessing the possible end of Israel. We are in the same moral position as our ancestors were as they watched Hitler rise but did nothing to pressure their favorite liberal Democratic president, FDR, to take any real action to save them or even to let Jewish refugees into the country. If we remain complacent, we will have the same anguish at watching the destruction of Israel that our forebears had in witnessing the Holocaust.

Because one thing is increasingly clear: Barack Obama is not about to lift a finger to stop Iran from developing the bomb. And neither is Hillary Clinton.

Obama may have held the first White House cedar, but he's not planning to spend next year in Jerusalem.

Random Thoughts for Today

2009-04-29T16:09:00.000-07:00

Waterboarding #1: Criminally prosecuting a previous administration for political differences is not only stupid and a waste of time but also damaging to our nations' morale, and only encourages our enemies

Waterboarding #2: Note to Obama: terrorists don't attack us because of waterboarding.

US Supreme Court: is becoming like Iran's Supreme Religious Council in its demands on a society.

Swine Flu: Sealing the border with Mexico won't halt the pandemic, but it could mitigate it! Seal it now you Washington DC morons!

Afghanistan: Obama is stranding our army in a hopeless country with an unwinnable mission.

Miss California: Hero!
Perez Hilton: Loser

Arlen Spector: The height of arrogance. This statement tells it all: "I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate. I have not represented the Republican Party. I have represented the people of Pennsylvania." It's all about power, screw what the "little people" want. He's a modern Marie Antionette (let them eat cake!), but much uglier.

NYC 747 Scare: Not only did it cost over $300,000 to fly Obama's Air Force One over Manhattan for a photo shoot (save money you idiots!) but it was felony stupidity to fly a huge 747 over New York City, terrorizing the civilians. Sue New Yorkers, sue! Note to Obama: keep Scareforce One away from NYC's airspace, please.

100 DAYS, 100 MISTAKES
1. "Obama criticized pork barrel spending in the form of 'earmarks,' urging changes in the way that Congress adopts the spending proposals. Then he signed a spending bill that contains nearly 9,000 of them, some that members of his own staff shoved in last year when they were still members of Congress. 'Let there be no doubt, this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability,' Obama said." -- McClatchy, 3/11

2. "There is no doubt that we've been living beyond our means and we're going to have to make some adjustments." -- Obama during the campaign.

3. This year's budget deficit: $1.5 trillion.

4. Asks his Cabinet to cut costs in their departments by $100 million -- a whopping .0027%!

5. "The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties." -- ABC News, 4/15

6. "Mr. Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the 'teleprompt president' over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech." -- Sky News, 3/18

7. In early February, the 2010 census was moved out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House, politicizing how federal aid is distributed and electoral districts are drawn.

8. Obama taps Nancy Killefer for a new administration job, First Chief Performance Officer -- to police government spending. But it surfaces that Killefer had performance issues of her own -- a tax lien was slapped on her DC home in 2005 for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. She withdrew.

9. Turkey tried to block the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new NATO secretary general because he didn't properly punish the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed. France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel were outraged; Obama said he supported Turkey's induction into the European Union.

10. . . . and he never mentioned the Armenian genocide.

11. The picture of Obama and Hugo Chavez shaking hands.

12. Hugo Chavez gave him the anti-American screed "The Open Veins of Latin America." Obama didn't remark upon it. At least it wasn't DVDs.

13. Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega went on a 50-minute anti-American rant, calling Obama "president of an empire." Obama didn't leave the room. "I thought it was 50 minutes long. That's what I thought," he said.

14. Executives at AIG get $165 million in bonuses, despite receiving an $173 billion taxpayer bailout.

15. "For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn't until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back." -- Associated Press, 3/18

17. Letting Air Force Oone fly low over Manhattan, scaring thousands. Sending "Scareforce One" to unnerve NYC is felony stupidity at best.

16. "After pushing Congress for weeks to hurry up and pass the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway." -- New York Post, 2/15

18. "The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today." -- Department of Homeland Security intelligence report

19. Nixes a "buy American" provision in the stimulus bill.

20. "Yes, Canada is not Mexico, it doesn't have a drug war going on. Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there." -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The 9/11 hijackers did not come across the Canada border

21. "The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system. The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as 'the largest middle-class tax increase in history.' " -- New York Times, 3/14

22. Failure to secure the border AFTER a plage breaks out in neighboring Mexico is foolish at best.

23. Sanjay Gupta was in discussions to become Surgeon General, but the TV personality withdrew after he was criticized for his flimsy political record.

24. Rasmussen finds 58% of Americans believe the Obama administration's release of CIA memos endangers the national security of the United States.

25. Only 28% think the Obama administration should do any further investigating of how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects.

26. "Obama thanked CIA employees for their work and said they're invaluable to national security. He explained his decision to release the memos, then told everyone not to feel bad because he was now acknowledging potential mistakes. Theirs, not his. 'That's how we learn,' Obama said, as though soothing a room full of fourth-graders." -- The Oklahoman, 4/23

27. By releasing the torture memos, Obama opened American citizens up to international tribunals. A UN lawyer said the US is obliged to prosecute lawyers who drafted the memos or else violate the Geneva Conventions.

28. In their first meeting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Obama a carved ornamental penholder from the timbers of the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet. Obama gave him 25 DVDs that don't work in Europe.

More tomorrow....

Radical gays

2009-04-19T17:01:00.000-07:00

As a former homosexual, I have alot of experience in the gay community. I have lived among them for a decade and saw teh ins and outs of the "lifestyle". I know their dirty laundry, all the things that they do not want anyone to know; how despicable they can truly be, how evil their sexual acts really are, etc. However, one of the main reason I no longer have gay friends is because I could see what was happening to them as a group. In the last 10 years or so, the entire gay community (minus a few small groups like the Log Cabin Republicans) have become a vicious and utterly anti-family hate group. The promotion of a radical homosexual agenda is their goal, and they are willing to run over (and even kill) people who do not agree with them. Their allies in the mainstream media even cover up their more heinous crimes like kidnapping of straight men (and their eventual rape) as well as children and young boys. The gay "community" which says they value "diversity" is actually a hard-core left-wing hate machine that has declared war on the family, on "breeders" (that is the ugly vicious term they call straight people), and Christians. Their all-out fight against the church began decades ago but now the homosexuals have become more militant, actually taking over and interrupting church services across the country and sending phony anthrax attacks against the Mormons for daring to support pro-family legislation. These "radical fags" (which many of them proudly call themselves) have decided that open warfare against all who oppose them in America is the goal; to utterly crush anyone who "oppresses" them, which could literally mean anything from disliking their clothes to not letting them indoctrinate your children about how "gay is good". Homosexuality is not only an offense against the natural order but against God as well, every major religion condemns homosexuals. In the Bible, there are numerous places that God condemns it utterly; from Sodom and Gomorrah to Leviticus, from Romans and Corinthians to Jude and Revelation, the Bible is clear; homosexuality is a sin and God did not create people to be gay. He couldn't possibly condemn them if He created them that way, which is why gays are desperate to "prove" that they were born that way. Sexuality is far more fluid than people think, and its not genetic; I know because I have seen people go from straight to gay, and gay to straight, as well as bisexuals. The one real hypocrisy is that gays believe you can go from straight to gay, but not the other way (which has been proven thousands of time,s but they do not want to hear that). My closest friend, Elbie, was married to a man for decades, then became a Christian and eventually married a woman, but the radical gays will vilify him for it, will condemn him, will say its all a lie, whatever. I know that what happened to Elbie was true, that he changed and I myself am in the process of changing (I am about 95% there). The sad thing is that gays have sided with the god of this world (the Devil) and are waging an all-out fight against Christians and anyone who opposes them. I even knew that they would get to the point where they would try and kill people who do not believe the way they do (see the picture below). Now, I believe that when someone says you should die because of your beliefs, they should receive the same; they should expect the same. It's utterly sad how we have abandoned the live-and-let-live philosophy of this society and embraced a totalitarian idealism that it is okay to suppress your neighbor if they don't believe what is politically correct. You can even loose your job nowadays if you say something bad to someone who is gay. It truly is a sad state of affairs where we are at now as a nation, but we'd better fight back for what we believe in, or else we'll loose it all...and your children will loose as well.

Death threats target opponents of 'gay' promotion
'Actions of Day of Silence supporters are speaking louder than the silence'
Posted: April 18, 2009
12:15 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

At least one pro-family organization that has opposed the pro-homosexual "Day of Silence" is being targeted with hate e-mails and telephone calls, including suggestions that officials go and kill themselves.

"You may not be gay, but you may be next," said one e-mail, which included a photograph of a casket, according to Karen England, executive director of the Sacramento-based Capitol Resource Institute.

England said the hate has flooded in since her organization joined the "Day of Silence Walkout." She also confirmed to WND that she has filed a police report on the threats.

WND reported earlier this week on a multitude of organizations across the nation that oppose the DOS promotion in public schools sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.

Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute noted the goal cited by GLSEN is to reduce bullying on school campuses, especially bullying perceived as targeting homosexual students or those with other "alternative' sexual lifestyles.

"No one supports bullying," she told WND. "Every school has more than ample anti-bullying policies in place. … For GLSEN, the means by which they want to end bullying is to normalize volitional homosexual conduct."

England told WND that another message was, "I wish you would just go kill yourself."

Message delivered to California pro-family organization

"If this is the kind of atmosphere we get just for asking kids to stay home, in an e-mail, can you imagine what is like for kids refusing to stay silent?" she said.

She also said teachers should focus on academic subjects, not changing minds about sexual issues.

"The actions of Day of Silence supporters are speaking louder than the silence," England said.

She said she is urging the walkout "because students should be free to support traditional marriage and relationships, without their peers seeing them as bigots."

The official day for the event is today, but opponents note some schools observe it on other days.

England said the Day of Silence "falsely equates being anti-harassment with being in favor of social activism in the schools. CRI strongly opposes all harassment. Teachers and students, however, should always be able to speak at school. The classroom is not an appropriate setting for social activism and protest."

England's organization has posted a video on YouTube, which also has been embedded here (Advisory: The video is not recommended viewing for children):

"Many people who support traditional values are called right wing extremists, and Homeland Security says it is concerned about us. Maybe Homeland Security should be more concerned about assessing the threats we are receiving than about us as a threat to others," England said.

GSLEN has sponsored the nationwide silent protest every April for the last 12 years. The event is said to be a showing of support for "gay," lesbian, bisexual and transgender victims of violence and bullying. According to GSLEN's 2005 National School Climate Survey, four out of five LGBT children experience harassment in school. The organization claims 64 percent of "gay" students feel unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation and 41 percent because of their "gender expression."

GLSEN claims there are about 4,000 homosexual clubs now in American high schools and middle schools.

Obama a Muslim?!

2009-04-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

You know, I never believe fringe theories, especially ones that actually look fringe, like the Moon landings never occurred, there are UFOs, and Obama is a Muslim.....until I saw several articles this week that proved it to me. There are three really solid reasons why Obama is clearly a stealth muslim:

1)President Obama, unlike any other previous American leader, bowed to the Saudi king. This not only represents subservience in that part of the world, but Obama bowed to the king because his nation holds the (unholy) cities of Mecca and Medina, sacred to all muslims. Bowing to the Saudi King is solely to honor that trust. Then Obama and his peons actually lied to the American people when he said he didn't bow; its clear on the video exactly what Obama did, he bowed in reverence to his spiritual leader, the Saudi king.

Wake up America. There were 20 leaders in that events. Why did Obama bow to only 1 and not the rest....don't be in denial....just be sensible. Remember most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia (Obama knew this when he bowed). The real reason why this makes so many Americans mad is our country is founded on the ideal of equality of all men and women therefore the President and all of the citizens do not bow to anyone we respectfully shake the hand of our friends. Our forefathers and ancestors fought for freedom and equality and that it what makes America so beautiful. Obama bowing is disrespectful to Americans and the men and women that suffered at a terrible cost for the freedom of their children. Notably, the Saudi king did not bow back. We don't bow to anyone (especially a foreign dictator). You only bow to the king of Saudi Arabia if you are a subject of the king. A pious Muslim must bow to the official guardian of Mecca, and President Hussein is no exception.

2)This week (the holy week of both Christians and Jews) Obama declared America is not a Christian nation, even though the vast majority of our citizens (80%) are Christian and our laws are Bible-based. Heck, even our money has pictures of God on them and statements of faith in God, but to Obama that doesn't matter. Even the most important political leaders of our nation (Washington, Lincoln, etc) have said America was a Christian nation, founded specifically on Judeo-Christian values (and not muslims ones). However, it is obvious that Obama, as a muslim, feels he must try and distance himself and the nation he "runs" from Christianity. I seriously doubt he would make such a remarkable (and arrogant) statement about Islam during Ramadan. This is why I believe he is clearly a muslim.

3) Then there was this shocking article:

Obama seeks Muslims for White House posts
45 Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 execs,government officials submitted for look
Posted: March 28, 2009

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama is conducting his own affirmative action program to get more Muslims in the White House. The move began with Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn, who took his oath of office with a hand on the Quran, to solicit the resume of what he considered to be the nation's most qualified adherents of Islam. According to the Denver Post, when White House officials heard about the program, it was put on overdrive. So far, 45 Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and government officials have been submitted for consideration. J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, sifted through more than 300 names as part of the search.

"It was mostly under the radar," Williams said. "We thought it would put (the president) in a precarious position. We didn't know how closely he wanted to appear to be working with the Muslim American community."

Ellison is serious about his faith. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca with the sponsorship of the Muslim American Society, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1991, Mohamed Akram wrote a memo for the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood that explained its work in America as "a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

4)Finally, there is this article which proved to me Obama isn't a Christian:

When Will Obama Go to Church?
By Bill Sammon

President Obama has not attended church services on any of the 11 Sundays since he took office, despite his pledge to find a new church after quitting Trinity United nearly a year ago because of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s incendiary rhetoric.

“We probably won’t make any firm decision on this until January, when we know what our lives our going to be like,” Obama told reporters last May at a press conference that he called to announce his break with Trinity.

By this point in former President George W. Bush’s tenure, the president had spent several Sunday mornings attending services at St. John’s Episcopal Church, which is located opposite the White House off of Lafayette Park. But the president made no decision in January, February or March. And now, with Easter just days away, Obama has yet to reveal what church he may have chosen or when he might attend his first Sunday services as president.

Days before his inauguration, Obama’s director of religious affairs, Joshua DuBois, said the Obamas “look forward to learning more about many churches in the District.” DuBois, who is now director of the White House office on faith-based initiatives, added at the time: “They will choose a church home at a time that is best for their family.”

Also in January, Obama told ABC that he and his wife Michelle would visit various Washington churches to find one that feels comfortable.

“It is tougher as president,” Obama said. “You know, this is not just an issue of going to church, it’s an issue of going anywhere. You don’t want to subject your fellow church members, the rest of the congregation, to being nagged every time you go to church. And so, we’re going to try to be balancing, not being disruptive to the city, but also saying we want to be part of Washington, D.C.”

By this point in former President George W. Bush’s tenure, the president had spent several Sunday mornings attending services at St. John’s Episcopal Church, which is located opposite the White House off of Lafayette Park. Obama is not the first president to opt out of church services in Washington. Former President Ronald Reagan refrained from services, saying the security requirements were too much of a strain on a congregation.

OBAMA'S BUDGET (deeply worrisome)

The Tyranny of (Democratic) Women

2009-04-03T16:33:00.000-07:00

Recently I read a book that said that the Soviet Union (and all its tyrannies) only lasted as long as it did because of the women of Russia. I found this a surprising (and odd) statement so I dug a little deeper and began to understand what the author meant. He was speaking to the socialist mentality of cradle-to-the-grave policies that Russia (and other socialist countries) endorsed. So too is the incredibly wealthy state of Washington being run into the ground by the two women senators and female governor that run this incredibly productive state, creating a despicable huge debt for its citizens. Five years ago when she first came into office as governor, Christine Gregoire inherited a budget surplus which she quickly squandered, running Washington into a foolish $5 billion dollar debt. Stupidly, local citizens re-elected this idiot woman (and endorsing her policies) last year, even though she had completely and utterly failed in her financial duties as the leader of one of the most wealthy states in the West. Washington's vast agricultural base, immense electricity production, and HQ for some of the worlds top companies (Boeing, Microsoft, and Starbucks) didn't prevent Gregoire from running this state into the ground economically. In addition, because of huge social spending in the state the budget next year for Washington is expected to be $9 billion in the red! With this record, Gregoire should be removed for incompetence for her bungling efforts to "fix the budget". She has refused to cut spending, even though most of the social spending is being paid to illegal aliens that have flooded the state, conquering dozens of towns in central and southern towns where white American citizens have to dye their hair or are physically attacked for having blonde hair!!! The two federal senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray have also inexpertly failed to meet the needs of the state and both have been grossly unskilled in alleviating the critical budget crisis facing Washintonians. All three women apparently cannot face the difficult decision of taking money that they have given to "the poor" away from them, even if it ruins the entire state. The sad fact is that the vast majority of overspending has been done to encourage illegal aliens to vote Democratic since they are the Democrats are the ones who give away the free money (this is called vote buying). Instead of simple (and easy) budget cutting to save the state from bankruptcy, these three women have done nothing but wail and wring their hands. Real men would have slashed the overspending by the state government, but women are too afraid of being "mean", one reason I am sure the Founding Fathers didn't want women to be able to vote in the first place, haha.....

FROM DEFENSETECH

'Peace partner': We chopped up Jewish boy
Takes credit for ax murder, while Israeli media blames 'unknown assailant'
By Aaron Klein

A top leader of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization called WND today to claim responsibility for the ax murder of a 13-year-old Jewish boy yesterday. Much of the Israeli media, however, is claiming the attack was perpetrated by an unknown assailant.

The terrorist leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's declared "military wing," said the attack was carried out to avenge the Feb. 12, 2007, assassination of Hezbollah arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh. He said the attack was carried out by members of what he called the Imad Mughniyeh Brigades, which he said is composed of Fatah Al Aqsa Brigades gunmen.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades later released an official pamphlet taking credit for the attack and also put out a statement to that affect on the group's website.

The 13 year old was killed, and another boy, age 7, was moderately hurt when a Palestinian attacker entered the Jewish community of Beit Ayin in the southern West Bank between Jerusalem and the biblical city of Hebron. The community is particularly easy to infiltrate since its inhabitants refused to build a security fence, explaining such protection would be a sign of weakness. The Palestinian terrorist used an ax to attack the two boys.

The ax murderer was thought to have fled the scene of the attack. Israeli security sources said there is good information on the exact identity of the killer and that the Israel Defense Forces was searching for him.

Asked by WND for comment, Abbas' office refused to condemn the attack.

Much of the Israeli media, meanwhile, is claiming an unknown assailant carried out the attack. Such claims were run in Israel's Haaretz and Maariv newspapers and by Channel 2 News. The exception was Yediot Aharonot, Israel's leading daily, whose military correspondent, Alex Fishman, reported Fatah was behind the attack.

U.S. and Israeli policy considers Fatah to be moderate. President Obama supports talks to create a Fatah-led Palestinian state.

Ex-sailor sentenced to 10 years in terror case
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN
Associated Press Writer

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - A former Navy sailor convicted of leaking details about ship movements and the best ways to attack them was sentenced Friday to the maximum 10 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Mark Kravitz said Hassan Abu-Jihaad, of Phoenix, betrayed his country and endangered his fellow sailors.

"I cannot really overstate the seriousness of this crime," Kravitz said. The leak "does constitute a fundamental betrayal of your country and of your oath. You endangered your colleagues, you endangered your vessel and other vessels and other sailors, and you endangered your country."

Abu-Jihaad was convicted last year of disclosing classified national defense information. Prosecutors labeled him a traitor who was trying to help foreign terrorists replicate the bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors.

Prosecutor William Nardani encouraged Kravitz to consider Abu-Jihaad's actions, not his demeanor in court. He said the former sailor praised the Cole bombing as an operation carried out by martyrs.

"That is a twisted view of the world," Nardani said. Kravitz said Abu-Jihaad's sentence should be a deterrent for anyone who supports terrorism.

"We happen to be engaged in a very different struggle right now," Kravitz said. "It's really a struggle about the fundamentals of freedom. That struggle will go on for quite some time and we need to ensure the people that are part of that struggle on our end uphold the oath and protect classified information from getting into the hands of those who stand opposed to those concepts of freedom."

Abu-Jihaad was also convicted on a charge of providing material support to terrorists, but Kravitz overturned the conviction last month, citing the language of the law.

Democrats: Party of Evil

2009-03-28T18:12:00.000-07:00

Democrats: The Party of Evil
You know, during an important time of my life I was a left-wing Democrat: I believed in everything they did, from a pro-abortion stance to redistribution of wealth from the wealthy to the poor. However, reality finally overcame all my idealism and I began to see the world for what it really is, not what it could or should be. That was the major reason I left the Democrat party in the early 1990s. Now, the US liberals have become utterly evil. The reason I say this is because of the following:

Democrats are anti-military: they have insisted on taking pictures of US soldiers returning from Iraq in coffins, have always sought to gut the US military capability because they believed (wrongly) that if the US had power-projection abilities within the US military, it would be used, and have vilified Marines and other valiant soldiers by attacking recruiting offices in major cities around the country as well as trying their best to kick off ROTC from universities and even from high schools.

Democrats are anti-religious: unless you are a pagan, atheist, or muslim, you are an enemy of the liberals in America. They hate and despise religious Americans, especially Christians and Catholics. Look at the "bad guys" in movies and TV shows from Hollywood; almost always they are shown to be "evil Christians" intent on killing you or oppressing you; as if leftist don't oppress anyone or coerce people to their viewpoint! In fact, liberals and leftists are waging an all-out war against their fellow Americans because they are utterly intolerant of their Christian neighbors. Its pure and total hatred, and such thoughts and actions are evil, wrong, and just plain un-American. The godless flock to the Democratic party in the USA; they are a party that enjoys evil, and the pain and suffering of people that its okay to hate. In the 2008 election, over 90% of atheists voted for the Democrats, thus proving my point using simple statistics.

Democrats are anti-life: only the leftists in the USA have pursued a pro-death agenda, seeking to destroy as many humans as possible through abortion, infanticide, and the killing of the elderly, the handicapped, and the terminally ill. They even approve of "Tiller the Baby Killer", who aborted over eleven thousand 7, 8, and 9 month old babies in the womb (for $5,000 each). He was even supported by the governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sabelius, who received money from Tiller's baby killing mill. Democrats seek to kill babies while freeing criminals from death row, a shocking thought if you just let it sink in. They wish to free to guilty and punish or kill the innocent, an evil act by any measure. Even now Democratic groups support pro-death laws like assisted suicide; the problem is when the state has to pay too much for a persons' health care, they make them take the suicide pill instead (this happened in Oregon last year). In fact, abortionists have killed over 45 million people in America alone, mass genocide in my mind and the mind of God.

Democrats are anti-technology: from wanting to blow up the vital dams in Washington state so that the fish can be happy (dams that stop terrific flooding in the area, provide year-long water to create huge food resources, and generate 4,000 megawatts of power) to trying to keep anyone from creating power from other than "renewable" sources. These renewable sources are ineffective and their single-minded promotion is the beginning of a neo-Luddite movement (anti-technology) in this country. In fact, "green" Democrats seem to think that anything humans do is evil, that we are evil. That sort of thinking IS evil. Human beings are great, are creative, and can be wonderful not just all bad. The hatred of humanity and its works sounds exactly like the way Satan thinks: he hates humans, children, and anything we accomplish. He is the most perfect, most vicious hater and apparently he has many disciples in the Democratic party. Here is another example of anti-technological thinking: there is a huge move away from bottled water, which is stupid. Not only does jointly sharing water sources spread all sorts of diseases like typhus and cholera but its important for Americans to drink more water, and less soda. These Luddite Cassandras whine about the impact of plastic on the environment, but since they are such backward-looking people they cannot see simple facts like within a few months or years, scientists will create a plastic eating bug that will easily burrow into waste landfills and eat the plastic that these anti-tech fanatics say will be around for thousands of years afterward. They don't want anyone to use anything that advances human life on this planet because they hate human progress if it disturbs a single butterfly: message is "bugs are more important than people".

Democrats are anti-science: from their foolish anti-tech fanaticism to declaring that the "debate on global warming is over", Democrats refuse to see the truth, or hearing about it from someone else. Their bizarre anti-science viewpoint will not believe that the Sun is actually heating both the Earth and Mars up, nothing Man is doing. The blind faith they put into the science that proves their beliefs, and their refusal to even consider any other information is anti-scientific in of itself. In fact, Michael Crichton said that the propaganda and lies pouring out of the Left is destroying scientific truth across the globe, that a new persecution of anyone who believes different is coming, and that is a new mindless ideological (and godless) Spanish Inquisition. Democrats refuse to see even simple answers to basic problems facing our nation and the world because it doesn't fit into their worldview. They are statist, pure evil because they fly in the face of whatever is true and good and right.

Democrats are anti-energy: from opposing fuels that are readily available (oil and natural gas) to opposing nuclear power, the Democratic party is wedded to an anti-energy ideology. The Big Lie in the 1970s and 1980s was "acid rain", but that was disproven so they had to move to something else: CFCs and carbon pollution. The real truth was CFCs never destroyed the ozone layer, the hole over the South Pole is a naturally occurring event that comes and goes, regardless of CFC levels. So too is the carbon ponzi scheme, a enormous evil lie that is only a meant to shift wealth from rich nations to poor nations; a radical scam. Energy policy in the USA is being run by a bunch of fanatics who hate human progress, so they will stop it by using these retro tactics.

Democrats are anti-family: from promoting radical homosexual agendas that leave little room for traditional families to zero efforts in promoting pro-family values or policies, the Democratic party has decided to wage war on the traditional family. The hatred spewed at this group of people by so many radicals on the Left is so sickening that decent minded people cannot watch these attacks for long. They will take up arms and fight to defend themselves and their families. In these efforts, the Democrats have shown to everyone whose side they are actually on; by promoting abortions for under-aged teens to encouraging books like "My Two Dads", it is clear they have an agenda, and God help you if you get in their way.

These issue listed above is why I have come to believe that the Democratic party is evil; it embraces evil and calls those things that are good "evil". They are twisted in their thinking and they pursue darkness, drinking it down like water. In the end, the Book of Revelation tells what happens to all these people that hate God, that hate what is good: they spend forever in eternal torment, in darkness because they love the darkness, being consumed by evil because they wanted evil. It's a sad testimony about a once-great party.

Obama "soaks the rich": churches, day cares, and homeless shelters
By DICK MORRIS
March 28, 2009

President Obama's glib assertion that his reduction in tax deductions will not reduce donations is absurd. His pathetic defense at his press conference - that he would still give a $100 dollar check to charity even if he only got $11 less of tax deduction from it was both disingenuous and beside the point. And his comment that his reduced deduction would only impact one or two percent of the nation misses the point that it is these folks who are doing almost half of the donating.

In 2006, the most recent year for which data is available, four million taxpayers had adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or more. They comprised 3% of the tax returns, made 31% of the income, but donated 44% of all charitable contributions. Together, they provided charity with $81 billion in that year. Obama's plan will cost them $10 billion in extra taxes on the income they allocated to charitable donations. How can the president be so glibly certain that they will not curtail their charitable contributions by a like amount or even more?

Imagine all the harm Obama's program will cause. Churches will be hit most hard. They account for the largest share of charitable donations, but universities, disease research, hospitals, soup kitchens, and cultural institutions will also be hard hit. So will international relief efforts that funnel aid abroad through churches or directly.

It is totally dishonest for Obama to pretend that his curtailment of these deductions won't hurt the poor. It will most directly impact them since most of the charities Obama is hurting focus on helping the impoverished. This proposal is not about saving money. It is about controlling it. By, in effect, transferring at least $11 billion a year from private philanthropy to government spending, Obama empowers the public sector at the expense of the voluntary one.

President Obama's recommended reduction in the tax deduction for charitable giving reflects his fundamental belief that only the government can or should help the poor. He wants to keep the impoverished directly dependent on the government - and the Democratic Party - for their daily bread.

The voluntary sector has always been the backbone of compassion in the United States. Our charitable donations dwarf those of any other country. And our system of tax deductions for giving permits us to decide what charities are worthy of our generosity - a decision Obama will transfer to the politicians under his program.

Welfare For Jihadists?
The Obama Administration is the “gift that just keeps on giving.” National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, speaking about those prisoners at Guantanamo Bay (GITMO) who are likely to be released in the United States under new policies adopted by Obama, pointed out that the prisoners would have to get some sort of welfare to help them start their new lives in the good old US of A. Director Blair apparently thought about this quite a lot and concluded, “We can’t put them out on the street.”

It must be very hard for our enemies to fully understand American liberals. Try to put yourself in their shoes for a moment: First, you are captured on the battlefield where you are trying to kill U.S. soldiers. Then you are imprisoned at GITMO and immediately provided expert medical attention and better nutrition than ever before. Soon lawyers from some of Washington’s most prestigious law firms offer to represent you free of charge.

Then a president is elected who went to a “church” for 20 years whose pastor loved to shout “God D - - - America” from the pulpit. Finally, you are told that the president intends to release you inside the country you dream will be destroyed some day, and the Director of National Intelligence wants you to be paid a stipend by those dreadful infidel taxpayers so that you can adjust to your new life. And just last week, that same president was floating the idea of taking away some health benefits from the soldiers who captured you!

While I ponder the meaning of all this tonight, I intend to stop by Arlington National Cemetery for a reality check.

Terror On The Border
In recent months many news sources have documented the terror on the U.S./Mexican border – 8,000 deaths in the past two years and hundreds of beheadings in a vicious war being waged by brutal drug lords. It is spilling over into American communities, and the Obama Administration is dragging its feet in responding. Today’s Washington Times should prod them considerably.

The Times interviewed Michael Braun, a former assistant administrator and chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), in its shocking front-page report today. According to Braun, the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah is working hand-in-hand with Mexican drug smugglers. For now, Hezbollah is using drug money to help finance terror operations in the Middle East.

But, Braun warns, “They [Hezbollah and the drug lords] work together. They rely on the same facilitators. One way or another, they are all connected. They’ll leverage those relationships to their benefit, to smuggle contraband and humans into the U.S.; in fact, they already are.” Today, it’s drugs and money. Tomorrow, terrorists and bombs.

As I have often stated in the past, border security is homeland security. Neither should be a partisan issue, left/right issue, Republican/Democrat issue. Terrorists don’t ask to check voter ID cards before committing their atrocities.

Another Withdrawal
Another week has gone by and another Obama nominee has withdrawn his name from consideration for public service. Jonathan Cannon, nominated to be deputy director of the EPA, bowed out of the process this week after questions arose about America’s Clean Water Foundation. Cannon had served on the foundation’s board, but the foundation shut down after a 2007 EPA audit charged it with gross mismanagement of taxpayer funds.

The foundation received a $25 million grant from the EPA to study environmental risks at meat processing plants. But, according to the Los Angeles Times, “EPA auditors questioned the foundation’s accounting for almost all that money and alluded to allegations of embezzlement.”

Whoever is responsible for vetting President Obama’s nominees needs to withdraw!

Obama, Israel, and "the Joke"

2009-03-23T17:43:00.001-07:00

Terrorists Coming To Your Neighborhood
When President Obama followed through on his promise to order the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay shut down, many wondered exactly what the president intended to do with the thugs still there. Now we are getting some clues. Attorney General Eric Holder admitted to reporters yesterday that the Obama Administration may release inside the United States some terror suspects currently being held at GITMO.

Holder said they would look at the prisoners on a case-by-case basis and determine which ones should be put on trial and which ones should be released. Among the possible outcomes, he added, “is the possibility that we could release them into this country.” Will everyone who wants a former GITMO prisoner as a neighbor raise their hand? What -- no takers? This president and his appointees have been sold to the American people as the brightest crew ever to run the country. In addition to their IQ, could we have a little more common sense?

Terror Attack On Israel Fails
A terrorist effort to kill hundreds of Israelis in Haifa Saturday was narrowly avoided. A 200-pound car bomb, packed with ball bearings intended to rip through flesh, malfunctioned near a crowded shopping mall. The bomb was intended to go off following the end of the Jewish Sabbath, when the mall would have been filled with families. Thank God for this miracle.

But I can’t help but think how the reality of what was planned completely contradicts President Obama’s naïve and dangerous foreign policy. Since taking office, President Obama has bowed to Iran, did his first major TV interview with an Arab network, pledged a billion dollars in aid to the Palestinians in Gaza and has been hypercritical of Israel. Yet, in spite of the president’s “engagement and diplomacy,” the enemies of the United States and Israel did everything they could this weekend to kill countless civilians. The chances are very good that this bomb was constructed with some form of help from Iran. This is how the Islamic Republic responded to Obama’s video “olive branch” of “mutual respect.”

If the attack had been successful, I have no doubt that Secretary of State Clinton would have expressed her sorrow and President Obama would have said that terrorism was unacceptable. But in short order, the dead Israelis would have been forgotten and the world, including our White House, would have continued its constant demands that Israel make more concessions and give up more land for peace. Fortunately, this bomb failed. Unfortunately, the next one and the one after that probably won’t. No amount of appeasement will stop these thugs.

What’s So Funny?
I don’t know how many of you happened to tune in to Obama’s 60 Minutes interview, but it was a surreal event. President Obama was talking about the precarious position of the United States and the rest of the world as a result of the global economic crisis. He was warning that we still faced the possibility of “an even more destructive recession or potentially a depression.” And through it all, the president just kept on laughing – as though he had forgotten that this was 60 Minutes and not Jay Leno. The president’s odd demeanor got the attention of CBS’s veteran journalist Steve Kroft. At one point during the interview, Kroft asked the president of the United States: “You’re sitting here. And you’re – you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, ‘I mean, he’s sitting there just making jokes about money.’ …Are you punch-drunk?”

That question may well be another “first” for President Obama. It’s certainly the first time I recall a president being asked if he was “punch-drunk.” But President Obama brushed it off with a laugh, saying, “No. No. There’s gotta be a little gallows humor to get you through the day.” Maybe so. But I suspect, rather than “gallows humor,” most Americans would appreciate steady leadership that is focused on the crisis at hand. Instead, Obama is jumping from one massive Big Government initiative to the next, while admitting that the economy stands on the brink of “an even more destructive recession or potentially a depression.”

No Joke
The Congressional Budget Office issued its analysis of President Obama’s budget this week, and it blew away the White House’s estimates concerning the full impact of the president’s budget on the national debt. “Red Ink Red Alert” was the headline to a weekend editorial in the Washington Post. “Obama Sticker Shock” is how the Wall Street Journal described the CBO report today. If you thought spending was out of control during the last eight years, consider this from the Associated Press, “President Barack Obama’s budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush’s presidency.”

Senator Judd Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, responded to the CBO report, saying, “The practical implications of [Obama’s budget] is bankruptcy for the United States. There’s no other way around it. If we maintain the proposals which are in this budget…this country will go bankrupt.” So far the administration has been cavalier in its reaction, dismissing the CBO report and indicating that it has no plans whatsoever to cutback on spending. That leaves only one option: massive tax hikes on everyone – and that’s nothing to laugh about!

US Disaster Coming

2009-03-05T17:08:00.000-08:00

Clueless and Classless
The election of Barack Obama was hailed as a great opportunity to restore America’s respect in the world. Yet, his diplomatic efforts so far have been clueless and classless. One of the first things Obama did when he took office was return a bust of Winston Churchill that had been given to President Bush by British Prime Minister Tony Blair after 9/11. As Britain stood by our side during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Churchill bust stood in the Oval Office throughout George W. Bush’s presidency. Needless to say, many Britons were shocked when Barack booted Winston from the White House.

This week, Obama had an opportunity for a “redo” when Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Washington. Unfortunately, President Obama again snubbed our ally with behavior that one British columnist described as “very odd and, frankly, exceptionally rude.” First, the White House denied the prime minister a formal press conference. Only once in more than a dozen meetings with Tony Blair did George W. Bush not grant the British prime minister such an honor, and that exception occurred during a hastily arranged visit after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Instead, Obama and Brown sat briefly together in the Oval Office in what the Washington Post described as “a chilly reception.” But the worst was yet to come.

It is customary for heads of state to exchange gifts when they meet, and Prime Minister Brown presented President Obama with a pen holder carved from the wood of the HMS Gannet. The Gannet was engaged in anti-slavery and piracy missions for a time off the coast of Sudan. She was the sister ship of the HMS Resolute. The wood of that ship was used to make the Resolute Desk, which was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Hayes in 1880. It is instantly recognizable as the magnificent desk that currently sits in the Oval Office.

Clearly, considerable care and thought were given to the gift Prime Minister Brown would present to President Obama. What did our president give the prime minister in return? Here’s how the U.K.’s Daily Mail put it: “For despite being leader of the world’s most bountiful nation, President Obama handed over nothing more thought-provoking than 25 classic American films on DVD. It was the equivalent of receiving a pair of socks from an unfamiliar aunt at Christmas -- and a less-than-glowing affirmation of the UK-US bond.”

Obama’s War On Energy
On Monday, hundreds of global warming protestors came to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate against Capitol Hill’s coal-fired power plant. The same day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was scheduled to address the environmental activists at a Capitol Hill rally. Evidently, Mother Nature didn’t get the memo. A major snow storm forced the cancellation of Pelosi’s flight back to Washington, and temperatures hovered around freezing throughout the day, well below the average for early March. On the same day, Discovery News reported that yet another study found that “global temperatures have flatlined since 2001.” The scientists are stumped. Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin said, “This is nothing like anything we’ve seen since the 1950s. Cooling events since then had firm causes… This current cooling doesn’t have one.” The study’s author suggests that the cooling trend “could continue for up to 30 years.”

This is particularly noteworthy because Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was on Capitol Hill yesterday testifying in defense of the administration’s planned tax hikes, including its $650 billion carbon cap-and-trade tax scheme intended partly to combat global warming. During his testimony, Geithner attacked the energy industry for causing global warming and said that the Obama Administration wanted to “change incentives” (manipulate tax policy) for the good of the country.

Because it is a tax on energy production, Obama’s carbon cap-and-trade scheme will produce additional costs that will ripple throughout the economy. The Detroit News published an editorial yesterday warning, “President Barack Obama’s proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation’s heartland … [This tax] will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount to a major tax increase for American consumers.”

Dr. Margo Thorning, chief economist of the American Council for Capital Formation, told Fox News this week that the Obama carbon tax will cost between “$700 to $1,400 per family, per year…” Where’s the logic in imposing a massive new tax on hard-working families and struggling businesses based on temperature variations that scientists can’t explain?

Coming Next Year: Inflation from Obama
By Dick Morris
Published on TheHill.com on March 3, 2009

In the last five months, according to the Federal Reserve Board, the money supply in the United States has increased by 271 percent. It has almost tripled.

Have car sales tripled? Home purchases? Consumer spending? Corporate investment? Not only have they not tripled, they have all declined more sharply than they have since at least the recession of 1981-82, and perhaps since the Great Depression.

So where is the money? If it isn't being spent, where is it?

It is being parked, squirreled away. Consumers are using it to pay down their credit card balances, pay off their mortgages, reduce their student loans, make the payments on the car sitting in their driveway -- not the one in the dealer's lot. Businesspeople are buying T-bills, investing the money and saving it. They aren't spending, either.

But one day this recession -- despite Obama's best efforts -- will end and things will begin to look up again. Then we can expect all of this money to come out of its parking space and get back on the highway of commerce. All at once. The inevitable result will be double-digit hyperinflation.

Since the spending and borrowing splurge is not confined to Washington, but is being mimicked all over the world, the inflation will not strike just one country but will be global in scope. The first global inflation in our history (except, perhaps, right after World Wars I and II), it will confront our policymakers with yet another unprecedented challenge and send them back, once more, to their economics texts. There, they will find that the only remedy for global inflation is global recession, a la Paul Volker. Having just emerged from a ruinous depression, nobody will be in the mood for more unemployment, but that is just what will have to happen to cool off the inflation and break the inflationary psychology that is likely to set in.

The point of this gloom and doom is that all this pain is entirely preventable. It will be caused by Obama's excessive spending and trillion-dollar-plus deficits. This spending, of questionable utility in overcoming the current recession/depression, is so far out of line with what the economy can handle that it will do more harm than good when the inflation hits.

Proof that his spending will have little impact on the depression is the vast increase in money supply with no commensurate improvement in the economy. Providing money, via spending hikes or tax cuts, does not guarantee that the money will be spent. Tax cuts can be saved and spending increases, while surely spent once (on the initial project), can rapidly lose their multiplier effect as wage-earners on the government payroll bank their money just like those who get tax cuts will do. Getting out of this economic mess depends on consumer and business confidence, a faith that Obama is eroding with his looming tax increases as rapidly as he tries to kindle it with his excessive spending.

None of this should come as any news to Obama. He likely knows all this. But he is determined to pass his agenda of bigger government, nationalized healthcare and vastly greater spending even at the price of inflation and subsequent recession. He puts ideology first and the economy a distant second.

The stock market has figured out his priorities and is responding accordingly. One can only hope that voters also eventually realize what is going on.

A Nation of Cowards

2009-02-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

Muslim man beheads wife in Buffalo, NY
You know, we are a nation of cowards. If Pat Robertson would have beheaded his wife, it would be all over the US news media, but since I muslim man did it (in Buffalo) it has been mostly squelched by media that is cowardly towards muslim rage. As of today, ABC, NBC, and CBS have refused to cover this hateful crime against a woman with two children. It's beyond despicable that this could happen in the United States and the two Sa'id girls were killed in Texas last year in a muslim honor killing (their father fled to Egypt and has never been found). We are such a Politically Correct people that we say nearly nothing when I muslim man beheads his wife here in the United States; I am sickened.....

Saudi judge sentences pregnant gang-rape victim to 100 lashes for committing adultery
By Liz Hazelton
Last updated at 11:01 AM on 11th February 2009

A Saudi judge has ordered a woman should be jailed for a year and receive 100 lashes after she was gang-raped, it was claimed last night. The 23-year-old woman, who became pregnant after her ordeal, was reportedly assaulted after accepting a lift from a man. He took her to a house to the east of the city of Jeddah where she was attacked by him and four of his friends throughout the night.

A judge in the Saudi city of Jeddah, pictured, ruled that the woman was guilty of adultery and should be jailed for a year. She later discovered she was pregnant and made a desperate attempt to get an abortion at the King Fahd Hospital for Armed Forces. According to the Saudi Gazette, she eventually 'confessed' to having 'forced intercourse' with her attackers and was brought before a judge at the District Court in Jeddah.

He ruled she had committed adultery - despite not even being married - and handed down a year's prison sentence, which she will serve in a prison just outside the city. She is still pregnant and will be flogged once she has had the child.

The Saudi Arabian legal system practices a strict form of medieval law. Women have very few rights and are not even allowed to drive. They are also banned from going out in public in the company of men other than male relatives.

Muslim polygamist who tortured his family is sentenced to 7 life terms

The 'reign of terror' merits the harshest punishment, Riverside County judge says. Mansa Musa Muhummed starved, beat and imprisoned his 3 wives and 19 children for decades.

By David Kelly
February 14, 2009

A polygamist who tortured, starved, imprisoned and beat his wives and children for decades was sentenced to seven life terms in prison Friday by a judge who said the man's "reign of terror" warranted the harshest punishment available.

Mansa Musa Muhummed, 55, spoke before sentencing and denied ever mistreating his three wives and 19 children.

"I never tortured anyone," he told Riverside County Superior Court Judge F. Paul Dickerson III. "I don't know where that came from."

The judge dismissed his comments. "Mr. Muhummed showed no remorse and accepted no responsibility for his twisted behavior, and the court is sending the strongest message possible," he said.

Family members filled the back row of the courtroom, some of the women wearing colorful head scarves.

"I'm very afraid of him. I really don't want him to get out of jail at all," his daughter Sharon Boddie, 28, told the judge. "Please, Your Honor, don't show him any mercy because he never showed any mercy to his kids."

Muhummed was arrested in 1999 at the family's house in rural Aguanga in Riverside County, but legal maneuvering delayed the trial for years.

Originally from Virginia, Muhummed came to California, converted to Islam and moved his family from place to place, living in houses, small apartments and vans.

Family members testified that he would beat them savagely with boat oars, hoses and electrical cords for any perceived infraction. Grounds for beatings included sneaking food, failing to recite a passage from the Koran accurately and not asking to use the bathroom. He also organized fights between his boys.

Muhummed tightly rationed food for everyone but himself. He carefully locked up the cabinets and chained the refrigerator. His children said he "ate like a king" while they went hungry.

In fact, they said, they went up to seven days without food. They had to beg for it or pick a lock and steal it. If caught, they were beaten or made to stand all night in a corner. Buckets in bedrooms usually served as their toilets, they said.

When police found Sharon Boddie in 1999, she was 18 years old, weighed 48 pounds and stood barely 4 feet tall. Her older brother Marlon weighed 53 pounds. Another brother, Curtis, 16, weighed 42 pounds.

Marlon Boddie, in an interview before the sentencing, said his father hung him upside down in the basement by a cord and beat him for hours. He said he was made to eat his own feces and vomit. Marlon Boddie, now 29, said he once smashed a bottle against his head in order to get sent to a hospital and out of the house.

"He broke my arm once and wrapped a towel around it real tight like a cast," he said. "Imagine what it's like to see your dad split open your head, then sew it up with a needle and thread."

Like many members of his family, Marlon Boddie is at loose ends, trying to navigate a world that was hidden from him for most of his life. The experience, he said, has irrevocably scarred him.

"It's like 20 years of my life has gone down the drain. Even now I get afraid to eat. I look around me to see if someone is watching," he said.

The family lived in Bakersfield, North Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs, Moreno Valley, Riverside and Aguanga. Muhummed made money selling his food stamps and collecting Social Security on himself and his children, family members said. His children were pulled out of elementary school or never sent. Some still struggle with basic skills such as reading, writing a check and shopping for groceries.

"When I got out I couldn't read," Sharon Boddie said. "I had never been to school."

The wives and children were often locked up in a dark garage for days with no heating, air conditioning or toilets.

In 1999, one of the wives slipped a letter to the mailman, begging for help. Police raided the Aguanga home and arrested Muhummed. Another wife, Marva Barfield, was jailed for a year on charges of child endangerment. She was released after agreeing to testify against her husband.

"I married him at 18 and got out at 45," Barfield said in court Friday. "I was scared of him. I want to apologize to my kids for not doing more, but I was truly afraid of him."

A letter was read from another daughter, Felicia Boddie, asking the judge to show mercy: "If he didn't have emotional problems, would he have done this? . . . I want the hate to end and the healing to begin."

When it was Muhummed's turn to talk, all but two family members left the courtroom. He spoke defiantly, saying that he was innocent and that his children were pressured to say they were abused.

"I made mistakes, but they know how I looked after them their whole lives," he said. "I tried to keep them together. My family never suffered the way they say they did."

The judge denied a defense motion to sentence Muhummed to one life term so he might be eligible for parole someday. Instead, he gave him a life sentence for each of the seven counts of torture. Muhummed isn't eligible for parole for at least 65 years, said his attorney, Peter Morreale.

Marta Butterfield, one of the jurors in the case, showed up for the sentencing. "I think he is such a monster," she said, "and I wanted to see him get everything he deserved."

Russia, Obama, and Hillary

2009-02-11T13:45:00.000-08:00

Homicidal Maniacs With Delusions Of Grandeur And Selective Memories
The global recession has hit Russia hard, so now the Russians are eager to have NATO and U.S. supplies (no explosives or weapons, though) shipped to Afghanistan via Russia. That means millions of dollars of much needed business for Russian railroads.

Another mutually beneficial financial deal with the West includes retiring more nuclear weapons. Russia wants to proceed with deals made in the last five years, that call for Russia and the U.S. dismantling most of their remaining nukes (each nation has about 6,000). Russia apparently wants the number reduced to a thousand, rather than the current 2,000. This would save hundreds of millions of dollars a year in maintenance and security costs.

The government has again warned neighboring countries (like Estonia and Ukraine) to stop being ungrateful for what Russia did for them during World War II. This is a long standing sore point. The Baltic Countries and Ukraine consider themselves forcibly made a part of the Soviet Union. All four nations contributed troops to the Nazi war effort against the Soviet Union. Although reviled in Russia and the West, these troops are local heroes, for having fought against the hated Russians (not for supporting the Nazis.) The Russians don't get it, ignoring the fact that Russian secret police and death camps killed millions and millions of people from the Baltic States and Ukraine. Russia considers these dead to be criminals, while the countrymen of the victims consider Russians homicidal maniacs, with delusions of grandeur and selective memories.

Speaking of delusions, hundreds of Russian MiG-29 fighters remain grounded after one of these aircraft crashed last December 5th. The cause was structural failure (the tail separated, in flight, from the rest of the aircraft). The Russian Air Force has been investigating, but has not announced anything yet. It's believed that poor maintenance and a shortage of spare parts is the main cause.

It's gets worse. Russian arms exporters see sales to China falling up to 40 percent this year. The reason is partly the poor quality of Russian weapons, and partly Chinese theft of Russian technology to build their own versions of Russian weapons (complete with flaws, but the Chinese don't seem to mind as long as they save lots of money).

Russia is proposing a new treaty between itself and the West. The main idea is that the West would promise not to invade Russia, or mess with Russian internal affairs (which tend to get messy). Russia, in turn, would stop acting like a paranoid bully.

NATO has told Russia that it is not happy with the way Russia has absorbed two portions (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) of neighboring Georgia, and is building a military base in Abkhazia. Russia ignored the criticism. Meanwhile, Russia continues to have problems governing some of its border areas, that would rather be independent. Mainly, it's the Caucasus provinces of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan. Long unstable because of clan and ethnic differences, the situation has been made worse by Russian economic mismanagement, and the appointment of corrupt provincial officials. The national government has sent in special police units, but that has done nothing for the unemployment and corrupt officials that anger the locals the most. The violence (weekly assassinations and raids on police stations) is spreading to Moscow, where in one recent week, there were four Caucasus related murders. The northern Caucasus has been a headache like this, for centuries. No one has ever come up with a lasting solution.

Russia has restored aid to Cuba, but at only a tenth of the Soviet era largess (which amounted to over a billion dollars a year), which ended in the early 1990s (and had been declining through the 1980s). Russia is doing this mainly to annoy the United States.

A DDOS attack coming from Russia, temporarily shut down Internet access in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. This was apparently the Russian government using its unofficial Cyber War militia to help shut down critics of a new cooperation deal between Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Russia is paying Kyrgyzstan a bunch of money ($180 million in forgiven debts, a $150 million loan that doesn’t have to be paid back, and $2 billion that does) to follow the party (Russian) line, and shut down the American air base there.

The sharp drop in raw materials prices (especially oil) has hit the Russian economy hard. The global recession has further depressed demand for Russian raw materials. Thus unemployment shot up by a million, to six million, in December. This has caused dozens of public demonstrations, which the police declared illegal, and the state controlled mass media ignored. Many people were arrested. But the Internet is not state controlled (despite attempts) and the word got around that the economy is not well all over. People blame the government, because the government has been taking over everything in sight, and there doesn't appear to be anyone else to blame. It is the governments fault, if only because government policy has made it difficult to make needed reforms (like rebuilding Soviet era infrastructure and obsolete factories). Instead, the government spent billions of dollars trying to prop up the stock market (which lost over 70 percent of its value last year.) By StrategyPage.com

If You Are Elderly – Be Afraid, Very Afraid
President Obama’s press conference last night was long on fear and short on facts. Once again, he warned the country that our “crisis” will become a “catastrophe” if we don’t immediately pass his spending bill. I always get suspicious when a politician wants everyone to shut up and vote on a 700-page bill. You can bet there are a lot of “surprises” hidden in the fine print.

In the last 24 hours, one of those surprises has been discovered and analyzed by conservative researchers. It is now being exposed by conservative talk radio – the same folks the Left wants to force off the air in the name of “fairness.” Who would have guessed that our president would hide in a “must pass” piece of legislation a provision that “rations” health care and makes it more likely that your Granny will be left to suffer or die?

The legislation sets up a new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. This office will monitor the medical treatments your doctor is providing you to make sure that Washington agrees that those treatments are appropriate and cost-effective. Another office, the Federal Coordinating Council of Comparative Effectiveness Research, will slow down the use of new medications and technologies because new treatments drive up costs.

It sounds complicated, but don’t be confused. Europe already has those offices and former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle wrote about them in a book last year. It was this “expertise” that led President Obama to nominate Daschle as Secretary of Health and Human Services, so he could serve as the architect of the planned nationalized health care scheme. But here’s the bottom line of how it works in Europe and what Daschle and others want to implement here: The federal government will decide your medical treatment with COST being the main consideration. Daschle argues in his book that instead of treating seniors, they will have to become more accepting of the conditions that come with age!

Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant Governor of New York and a health care analyst, points out that this socialized medicine approach would be disastrous. In 2006, in England, the health care board ruled that elderly citizens with macular degeneration could not receive treatment with a new drug until they were blind in one eye! It took three years of public protests to reverse the policy. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Last year, one thousand British doctors were fighting hard to reform Britain’s health care system because that “progressive” nation also has one of the highest cancer mortality rates in Europe. Why? Because some bean counting bureaucrats in the basement of the British Health Department decided it isn’t “cost effective” to treat cancer patients. Like Nancy Pelosi trying to justify birth control in the stimulus bill, the Left sees people as a burden to Big Government’s bottom line.

Consider this irony. A powerful politician who has long championed government health care had a seizure last year. In Canada or Great Britain, “average Joes” might have to wait months for an MRI. Not this politician. Twenty-four hours later, he was diagnosed with a rare form of malignant brain cancer. Unlike “average Joes” in Canada and Great Britain, this politician didn’t have to wait months to see a specialist. Within two weeks he was treated by some of the world’s foremost experts on brain cancer.

Ted Kennedy is alive today probably because we don’t have socialized medicine. The free market, while flawed, is still the best system man has devised. I’m sure there is room for improvement, but I’m equally sure that government isn’t the solution. The Europeans and Canadians flocking here to get health care denied them by their socialist governments obviously agree. But where will Americans flee under the new socialist order?

Here’s the danger inherent in government-run health care. Just like a child living in a parent’s house has to abide by the parent’s rules, you will be treated like a child. If you expect Uncle Sam to pay for your health care, then Washington bureaucrats will dictate whether saving your health is too costly. The elderly always suffer under such a system. By the way, what the heck is this doing in a “stimulus bill”? And does it help explain why our new president is so intent on spending a trillion dollars after only one week of congressional debate?

Hillary's Incredible, Shrinking Role
By Dick Morris
Published on TheHill.com on February 9, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama's chief Cabinet officer.

Since her designation:

• Vice President Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the Inauguration, could not but send a signal to Hillary that he would conduct foreign policy in the new administration, leaving Hillary in the role of backup.

• Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the Clinton years.

• Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine), negotiator of the Irish Peace Accords, was appointed to be the administration's point man on Arab-Israeli negotiations.

• Samantha Powers, Obama's former campaign aide, who once called Hillary a "monster," has been appointed to the National Security Council (NSC) as director of "multilateral affairs."

• Gen. James L. Jones, Obama's new national security adviser, has announced an expansion of the membership and role of the NSC. He pledges to eliminate "back channels" to the president and wants to grow the NSC's role to accommodate the "dramatically different" challenges of the current world situation.

• Susan Rice, Obama's new United Nations ambassador, insisted upon and got Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she will presumably also have the same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy adviser during the campaign.

So where does all this leave Secretary of State Clinton?

While sympathy for Mrs. Clinton is outside the normal fare of these columns, one cannot help but feel that she is surrounded by people who are, at best, strangers and, at worst, enemies. The competition that has historically occupied secretaries of State and national security advisers seems poised to ratchet up to a new level in the current administration.

Hillary's essential problem is that she is an outsider in the current mix. She was the adversary in the campaign, and Rice and Powers -- at the very least -- know it well, having helped to run the campaign that dethroned her. Can they -- and she -- be devoid of bitterness or at least of normal human trepidation? Not very likely.

The fact is that the power of the secretary of State is not statutory, nor does it flow from the prestige of the post's occupant. Former Gen. Al Haig, once supreme commander of NATO and chief of staff to President Nixon, found that out when he was undercut as secretary by the White House troika of Mike Deaver, James Baker and Ed Meese. Bill Rogers, Eisenhower's attorney general and Nixon's California confidant, found himself on the outs from the moment he became secretary of State, with Henry Kissinger soaking up all the power through his direct access to Nixon as national security adviser.

The power of the secretary of State flows directly from the president. But Hillary does not have the inside track with Obama. Rice and Powers, close advisers in the campaign, and Gen. Jones -- whose office is in the White House -- all may have superior access. Holbrooke and Mitchell will have more immediate information about the world's trouble spots.

So what is Hillary's mandate? Of what is she secretary of State? If you take the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan out of the equation, what is left? One would have to assume that the old North Korea hands in the government would monopolize that theater of action. What, precisely, is it that Hillary is to do? The question lingers.

And for this she gave up a Senate seat?

Which way Obama?

2009-01-26T20:45:00.000-08:00

Obama Takes the Clinton Way
How much will new President Obama follow the Clinton's agenda instead of his "new change" message that got him elected, from the very first it seems. Like Bill Clinton did when he first became president, Hussein Obama has decided to pay $400 million dollars to support abortions overseas, even though our country is bankrupt. The sneaky way he did it (by announcing it late Frienday when everyone has gone home for the weekend) also shows the way he will most likely do anything that could be controversial, and un-American. How a Demoquack thinks that funding the abortions of innocent children in Africa is somehow American is beyond me, and shows that they as a party are fully committed to expanding their "death agenda". Anyone who supports this kind of agenda, while we are bankrupt at home, are disillusioned and mentally misled. In a time of great economic anxiety and surging budget deficits, is forcing American taxpayers to subsidize abortion really such a high priority for the new administration or the best use of our resources? And I can't help but be perplexed and disappointed by the irony of extending rights to terrorists while committing American tax dollars to the destruction of innocent life.

Our Enemy Is Cheering
The sight of President Obama yesterday proudly signing an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility and ordering U.S. officials to end coercive interrogation tactics of suspected jihadists was infuriating. It is really hard for me to get inside the head of a president and commander-in-chief who decides in his first hours in office to make life easier, not for his fellow citizens, but for those who want to kill us. But his action should certainly be a clarifying moment for those who have deluded themselves into believing he will govern from the center. The man now in the Oval Office is a MoveOn/ACLU leftist, and we are already less safe than we were one week ago.

Remember how candidate Obama constantly bragged during the campaign that he liked to hear a lot of view points from smart people before he made his decisions? This morning we found out that he got that wise counsel. CIA Director Michael Hayden and outgoing Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell begged the president not to sign that executive order. They told him that just the fear of harsh interrogations often intimidated jihadist detainees into talking. And I’m sure they reminded him that when these thugs talk, LIVES ARE SAVED. President Obama ignored their advice. Our “community organizer” in chief apparently concluded that he knew better. And he certainly understood that he better not cross the radical Left groups, like Code Pink and ANSWER, which would have been infuriated if he had put our national security needs first.

At the signing of the executive order, President Obama admitted he didn’t know where the prisoners at GITMO would go once the facility is closed. (Shouldn’t we have figured that out first?) But maybe there is a solution after all. Marine-basher Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) urged the president to send the thugs to his western Pennsylvania district. I’m sure his constituents are thrilled. Releasing the prisoners and sending them home could be a major problem too. We learned this morning that another former GITMO prisoner, Said Ali al-Shihri, released some time ago due to pressure from the Left, has reemerged in the news. He is now the new second in command of Al Qaeda in Yemen. People will die because the American Left was more worried about his “rights” than the safety of your family. Words fail me.

House Republicans promptly introduced a bill to ban GITMO detainees from U.S. soil. “Closing Guantanamo Bay presents a clear and present danger to all Americans,” said Rep. Lamar Smith, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. Smith pointed out that leftwing judges could very well order the prisoners released here in the U.S. You can count on it happening. American Values will do everything we can to get that legislation passed.

Stop Stimulating Big Government
Just days into his administration, President Obama suffered a major embarrassment and a blow to the centerpiece of his economic agenda. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report that seriously called into question the rationale for the massive $825 billion “stimulus” bill. Here’s why: The CBO found that relatively little of the money would actually be spent this year. That’s the whole point of a “stimulus” bill – to get money into the economy now!

Yet, according to the CBO, most of the $350 billion targeted for “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects won’t be spent until 2011 or even later. Believe it or not, $63 billion won’t be spent until sometime between 2013 and 2019. Are you willing to wait two, four or ten years for the Obama-Reid-Pelosi plan to kick in? Even the liberal Washington Post was forced to concede that “the CBO analysis appears to confirm the complaints of many Republicans and other critics, who have long argued that spending money on … infrastructure projects is ineffective at quickly jolting a sluggish economy.”

The lesson of the Great Depression should have taught us that. Roosevelt’s New Deal did little to end the economic crisis, that started in 1929. But the party that was in control during the ten-year Depression is the same in control today, and its doing the exact same thing it did then – stimulating Big Government, rather than the economy.

Twenty-eight years ago, Ronald Reagan took office after inheriting the “Carter malaise” of double-digit inflation and interest rates. He told us in his 1981 inaugural address, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” He cut taxes on individuals and businesses and restrained government spending, and in doing so unleashed one of the greatest economic expansions in our nation’s history. We don’t need another “New Deal” Big Government spending binge. We need another Reagan Revolution!

Gay terrorism on the Rise

2008-12-31T20:30:00.000-08:00

Ski manager shot after professing Christianity
Investigators: Gunman asked ' religion' questions before fatal attack

NEDERLAND, Colo. – A gunman who broke into a staff meeting at a Colorado ski resort ranting about religion asked the manager what he believed and shot him twice when the victim responded he was Catholic, according to reports published today about the tragedy.

The Boulder County coroner identified the gunman as Derik A. Bonestroo, 24, who had been living in Nederland. According to a report in the Boulder Daily Camera, witnesses said Bonestroo burst into the staff meeting yesterday at the Eldora Mountain Resort near here.

Sheriff Joe Pelle said Bonestroo was yelling something about religion to employees when resort General Manager Brian Mahon heard the commotion and came into the room. The Camera said witnesses reported the shooter asked Mahon which religion he believed, and when Mahon said he was Catholic, the shooter fired twice and killed him.

Mahon, 49, leaves behind a wife and two children. He had worked at Eldora since 1991.

Bonestroo was later identified as a gay man who openly hated Christians, say his co-workers in Nederland.

Editors note: I knew this was going to happen once the homosexuals running amok across the country decided to get a backbone and start hurting and killing people who disagree with them. Homosexual terrorism, including attacks on churches and sending mysterious "white powder" to denominations, will be on the rise for the foreseeable future. Gays can be (and many are) as fanatical and vicious as any other group.

Propaganda in the News (again)
The most grievous and blatant example of news media spewing pure propaganda has been the riots in Greece. The conservative government running the country is under attack by a wides-spread (and deadly) communist movement but since this "movement" is left-wing, most major media are just reporting the violence that has spread across the birthplace of democracy as "random violence by students". What is really happening is that leftists have become emboldened by an upswing in government take-overs around the world and are moving to overthrow the democratically elected government in Athens. The despicable and dangerous move by the mainstream media to cover up this communist insurgency is criminal and unethical. Hopefully the government of Greece can put down these leftist attacks and stabilize the country, and all people of good-will wish the same.

Israel Fights Back
For months, Hamas thugs in Gaza have fired missiles and mortars into southern Israel, subjecting hundreds of thousands of Israelis to a campaign of 24-hour terror. This was done in clear violation of an Egyptian-negotiated cease-fire to which Hamas had agreed. As usual, the world’s reaction to this outrage was a collective “yawn.” The United Nations was silent. Major newspapers seldom reported the daily attacks. But this weekend, Israel did what any sovereign nation would do under the same circumstances: It struck back at those responsible for the aggression – Hamas, the Iranian-backed terrorist group. As I write this, the Israeli counterattack is continuing. Israeli government officials are suggesting that their goal is to cripple Hamas. We should all hope they are successful.

Predictably press reports have been distorted to make Israel look like the aggressor who doesn’t care about civilian casualties. Don’t be taken in by the propaganda. The war criminals in this conflict are the Islamic extremists who comprise Hamas and their allies throughout the Middle East, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and his government of thugs.

Has Israel gone too far? Hamas propagandists are already screaming that the Israeli attacks are “disproportionate.” Some “mainline” U.S. religious denominations are repeating this charge, and before the day is out Jimmy Carter will be singing the same tune. They are arguing that since most rockets and mortars fired by Hamas into Israel have missed their targets, Israel should not respond effectively. But under international law, any nation can respond at a level sufficient to meet the threat. Hamas rocket attacks are destroying normal life and have made daily routines impossible for countless Israelis whose children cannot go to school. Israel has every legal and moral right to demolish the terror infrastructure that supports the daily rocket attacks on its people.

Gaza, in recent years, has been turned into “Gazastan,” an Islamic republic that educates its own children to seek death in martyrdom operations. Weapons are being stored in mosques. The only university in Gaza has turned its labs over to the terrorists, who are using them to make bombs and mortars. Gaza TV airs “children’s shows” that teach six and seven year-olds to kill Jews. The Gaza government just instituted a new legal code based on Sharia Islamic law that permits crucifixion for certain crimes against Islam.

Gaza is hell, but not because of Israel. Its conditions are unbearable because its people elected Hamas – an organization with no economic plan, no educational ideas, nothing to offer at all except to kill the Jews, kill the infidel and destroy Israel.

It is almost laughable to see demonstrations by outraged Muslims reacting to Israel’s air strikes. There was no such outrage when a Sunni extremist blew up 14 Afghan school children ages eight to ten a few days ago. Over Thanksgiving, when Islamic terrorists attacked in Mumbai, India, intentionally killing civilians, including Jews, the streets of the Middle East were calm as those murderers spread death in the name of Islam. (We now know that many of the Indian victims, including a rabbi and his five-month pregnant wife, were sexually assaulted and their genitals mutilated before they were killed.)

Israel is fighting back, and the usual alliance of Islamists and leftwing extremists are protesting. If our new president at some point concludes that America will have to fight back too, the same extremists will go after him, just as they have savaged President Bush. But fight back we must or we and our civilization will die.

All men of goodwill should be thanking Israel today and praying for her success.

If Democracy Doesn't Work, Try Anarchy

2008-11-20T23:05:00.001-08:00

by Chuck Norris

Protestors of Proposition 8 in California (the marriage amendment) shoved aside a 69-year-old woman who was bearing a cross. They reportedly spit on her and stomped on her cross. They then aligned themselves in a human barricade, blocking the media from getting to or interviewing the woman.

Prop. 8 supporter Jose Nunez, 37, was assaulted brutally while distributing yard signs to other supporters after church services at the St. Stanislaus Parish in Modesto.

Calvary Chapel Chino Hills was spray painted by vandals after they learned that the church served as an official collection point for Prop. 8 petitions.

Letters containing white powder (obviously mimicking anthrax) were sent to the Salt Lake City headquarters of the Mormon church and to a temple in Los Angeles. (Thankfully, the FBI said the substance was nontoxic.)

The 25-year artistic director of the California Musical Theatre, who also happens to be a Mormon, was muscled to resign because of his $1,000 donation to the campaign to ban gay marriage in California.

A pro-homosexual, pro-anarchy organization named Bash Back marched into the middle of a church service and flung fliers and condoms to the congregants. They also hung a banner from the balcony that featured two lesbians in provocative positions at the pulpit.

And lastly, the tolerance-preaching activists also have taken their anger to the blogosphere, where posts have planted ideas ranging from burning churches to storming the citadels of government until our society is forced to overturn Prop. 8. You even can find donor blacklists online. The lists include everyone who financially backed Prop. 8 -- even those who gave as little as $46 -- with the obvious objective that these individuals will be bantered and boycotted for doing so.

What's wrong with this picture? Lots.

First, there's the obvious inability of the minority to accept the will of the majority. Californians have spoken twice, through the elections in 2000 and 2008. Nearly every county across the state (including Los Angeles County) voted to amend the state constitution in favor of traditional marriage.

Nevertheless, bitter activists simply cannot accept the outcome as being truly reflective of the general public. So they have placed the brainwashing blame upon the crusading and misleading zealotry of those religious villains: the Catholics, evangelical Protestants, and especially Mormons, who allegedly are robbing the rights of American citizens by merely executing their right to vote and standing upon their moral convictions and traditional views.

What's surprising (or maybe not so) is that even though 70 percent of African-Americans voted in favor of Proposition 8, protests against black churches are virtually nonexistent. And everyone knows exactly why: Such actions would be viewed as racist. Yet these opponents of Prop. 8 can protest vehemently and shout obscenities in front of Mormon temples without ever being accused of religious bigotry. There's a clear double standard in our society. Where are the hate-crime cops when religious conservatives need them?

There were many of us who passionately opposed Obama, but you don't see us protesting in the streets or crying "unfair." Rather, we are submitting to a democratic process and now asking how we can support "our" president. Just because we don't like the election outcome doesn't give us the right to bully those who oppose us. In other words, if democracy doesn't tip our direction, we don't swing to anarchy. That would be like the Wild West, the resurrection of which seems to be happening in these postelection protests.

I agree with Prison Fellowship's founder, Chuck Colson, who wrote: "This is an outrage. What hypocrisy from those who spend all of their time preaching tolerance to the rest of us! How dare they threaten and attack political opponents? We live in a democratic country, not a banana republic ruled by thugs."

Regardless of one's opinion of Proposition 8, it is flat-out wrong and un-American to intimidate and harass individuals, churches and businesses that are guilty of nothing more than participating in the democratic process. Political protests are one thing, but when old-fashioned bullying techniques are used that restrict voting liberties and even prompt fear of safety, activists have crossed a line. There is a difference between respectfully advocating one's civil rights and demanding public endorsement of what many still consider to be unnatural sexual behavior through cruel coercion and repression tactics. One thing is for sure: The days of peaceful marches, such as those headed up by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., seem to be long gone.

The truth is that the great majority of Prop. 8 advocates are not bigots or hatemongers. They are American citizens who are following 5,000 years of human history and the belief of every major people and religion: Marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman. Their pro-Prop. 8 votes weren't intended to deprive any group of its rights; they were safeguarding their honest convictions regarding the boundaries of marriage.

On Nov. 4, the pro-gay community obviously was flabbergasted that a state that generally leans left actually voted right when it came to holy matrimony. But that's exactly what happened; the majority of Californians -- red, yellow, black and white -- voted to define the margins of marriage as being between one man and one woman. California is the 30th state in our union to amend its constitution in doing so, joining Florida and Arizona in this election.

Like it or not, it's the law now. The people have spoken.

The Church Must Wake-Up

2008-11-13T18:48:00.000-08:00

Once again, I want to congratulate our friends in California who fought a valiant battle against all the media and cultural elites to preserve traditional marriage. The battle, however, is not over. After the people of California voted twice in eight years to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, the homosexual lobby is going to court yet again. And today there is news that the issue could be on the ballot in 2010, this time with a twist. If their legal efforts fail, supporters of same-sex “marriage” are planning to put their own initiative on the ballot in two years that would reverse Proposition 8.

So, while we celebrate this victory, we must remain vigilant and be ready to defend our values once again, because the Left never gives up. They will come at this again and again and again, and we must never tire of “fighting the good fight.” We must persevere, and we must stand our ground! I know many pastors have stepped up to the plate and spoken up. I am thankful for their leadership. Many of you have emailed me to let me know what was said or done in your place of worship.

But, unfortunately, too many “spiritual leaders” are being cowardly on fundamental issues including life and marriage. Too often they are distorting the Scriptures in suggesting that they should not speak on “political issues” lest they offend someone. In their desire to be “relevant” or not to offend, they dilute or even ignore the truth. But these are not only political issues; these are fundamental moral issues that have been dragged into the courts and the public square. The radical Left is using the courts to redefine our culture, assault our values and, ultimately, restrict religious liberty. Was slavery a political issue or a moral issue? Men and women of faith rightly led the fight against slavery, and today they must lead the fight for faith and family.

I want you to watch a video we have posted on our website. See how one elderly woman stood up for traditional marriage, and watch the reaction of the “tolerant” pro-gay marriage mob. What you will see is disgusting and outrageous. A line has been crossed. This video should put to rest the illusion of “tolerance” that the Left hides behind, and it should be a wake-up call to anyone who supports traditional values. This 69-year-old lady was verbally and physically assaulted. The cross she was carrying was ripped from her hands, stomped on and destroyed. Yet, the news broadcaster says at the end, “There’s a lot of hate on both sides.” What was he watching? I saw a mob of intolerant, hateful men attack an old lady.

Americans are very tolerant people. Most Americans believe in “live and let live.” But the gay rights movement that defines itself entirely on private behaviors is now marching in the streets, assaulting its opposition and making demands on public policy. It wants to redefine marriage. It wants to teach your children in the public schools that same-sex marriage is morally equivalent to normal marriage.

It is demanding special rights in law and employment. While it preaches “tolerance,” it uses the courts to impose its values on the American people. And when the people exercise their rights at the ballot box, the militant homosexual movement takes to the streets to intimidate. Now church services are being disrupted, and children are having condoms thrown at them by angry homosexuals. Business owners and private individuals who financially supported Proposition 8 are being targeted for harassment for simply believing that marriage should remain what it always has been – the union of one man and one woman. Last night, thousands mobbed a Mormon temple in Manhattan. And homosexual rights groups are planning demonstrations this weekend in 175 cities and on Capitol Hill. When are our pastors going to stand up and start leading their flocks? Or are we going to have to find leadership in 69-year-old ladies?

By Gary Bauer