Speaker Pelosi is backing away from a deal she cut with centrists to advance health reform, said a source familiar with talks.
Pelosi’s decision to move away from the agreement that was made with a group of Blue Dogs to get the bill out of committee would steer the healthcare legislation back to the left as she prepares for a floor vote.
Pelosi is planning to include a government-run public option in the House version of the healthcare bill. She wants to model it on Medicare, with providers getting reimbursed on a scale pegged to Medicare rates.
"The speaker is full-steam-ahead," said a senior Democratic aide.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Why You Can't Make A Deal With The Devil
Remember that "compromise" deal struck with Blue Dogs to get the healthcare bill out of Waxman's committee? Well as what was probably the plan all along, the bill is being moved to the left as it approaches a vote on the House floor, and the compromise provisions are being thrown away. And yes I did just equate Pelosi as the devil. There are certain democrats that are intelligent and well meaning and we just have a difference of opinion about things. Evan Bayh is a recent example, Daniel Patrick Moynihan is another from the past. Pelosi is a socialist/fascist thug who hates individual liberty and wants the government to control vast stretches of the economy, so she is the devil in my book. I believe that if constitutional provisions were a bit different she would actually start arresting people who disagreed with her.
Worst. Foreign. Policy. Ever.
Why is Jimmy Carter smiling, while we're still recovering from Carter foreign policy mistakes 30 years later, Obama is determined to beat his record as worse president ever with the worse foreign policy ever. The Washington Times provides the score so far:
Tomorrow, President Obama will chair a special nuclear-disarmament meeting by the United Nations Security Council. The White House bills this as a historic first, but it is typical of Mr. Obama's emphasis on style over substance. He will appear before the body with the weakest foreign-policy record of any new U.S. president in recent memory. An around-the-world tour of international hot spots shows that for all the president's lofty rhetoric, he can point to precious few accomplishments.
In the Middle East, Mr. Obama's unprecedented obsequiousness in dealing with the Muslim world has generated no tangible returns. The leading Arab states repeatedly have declined to budge toward compromise to push the regional peace process forward, and they show no signs of normalizing relations with Israel. Palestinians refuse to talk to Israelis until they agree to a settlement freeze on the West Bank, and Israel has reportedly responded to Mr. Obama's call for a freeze by saying it will go ahead and build 2,500 new housing units.
Nor has Mr. Obama's outreach effort translated into a general sense of good will. A May 2009 University of Maryland survey of the Middle East showed that those with a very or somewhat favorable view of the United States increased only 3 percent between 2008 and 2009, from an anemic 15 percent to 18 percent.
In Afghanistan, the president has hit turbulence within his own party, and as the going gets tough, he seems ready to repudiate his "stronger and smarter" strategy after only six months. He is balking at supplying the troops necessary to stave off disaster, and the growing discussion in Washington is now how the administration can minimize the political damage of a defeat in Afghanistan.
North Korea has continued to be openly belligerent, testing a nuclear weapon and long-range missile, withdrawing from the 1953 armistice agreement with South Korea, and declaring it will weaponize its plutonium stocks. In response, the United States unilaterally conceded to long-standing North Korean demands for bilateral talks.
North Korea's success has encouraged Iran to move forward with its own nuclear program. The Islamic regime has agreed to talks Mr. Obama requested, but the mullahs refuse to negotiate the nuclear issue. The United States finds itself to the left of the United Nations and France on the question of acknowledging that Iran even has a nuclear-weapons program, which is quite an achievement.
Wary of Iran, other Middle Eastern states are gearing up for nuclear programs, unconvinced by U.S. promises of extending a defensive umbrella. The Eastern European umbrella was abruptly closed when the Obama administration abandoned the missile-defense deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic last week. This move drew plaudits from Moscow, which had registered strenuous objections and was not asked to make any reciprocal concessions to match the U.S. surrender. Russia continues militarily to occupy a significant part of Georgia, an American ally, and conducts business as usual with Iran and other troublemaking states.
Actions in Mr. Obama's world are consequence-free. The only country the Obama team has tried to strong-arm is Honduras, which is desperately trying to stave off a socialist takeover by an anti-American autocrat whom the State Department has concluded is worthy of full U.S. support. This has delighted Cuban dictators Raul and Fidel Castro and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, who are very willing to let the United States carry their water. Venezuela, meanwhile, has signed a major arms deal with Russia, continues to build the anti-Gringo "Bolivarian" bloc, bullies U.S. ally Colombia and plans to launch its own nuclear program.
Then there is the catalogue of Mr. Obama's embarrassing moments on the world stage, a list which includes: giving England's Queen Elizabeth II an iPod with his speeches on it; giving British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a collection of DVDs that were not formatted to the European standard (by contrast, Mr. Brown gave Mr. Obama an ornamental desk-pen holder made from the oak timbers of Victorian anti-slaver HMS Gannet, among other historically significant gifts); calling "Austrian" a language; bowing to the Saudi king; releasing a photo of a conference call with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which the president was showing the soles of his shoes to the camera (an Arab insult); saying "let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's"; saying the United States was "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world"; suggesting Arabic translators be shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan where Arabic is not a native language; sending a letter to French President Jacques Chirac when Nicolas Sarkozy was the president of France; holding a town-hall meeting in France and not calling on a single French citizen; and referring to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when he meant Cinco de Mayo. Also of note was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton giving Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a "reset" button with the Russian word for "overcharge."
Progress toward an international agreement on global climate change has stalled, an administration failure which we applaud. We also approve of the highly effective expanded attacks by drone aircraft against terrorist targets in Pakistan, a policy implemented by President George W. Bush in August 2008. Mr. Obama was likewise successful in ordering the taking out of three teenage Somali pirates by Navy snipers in April after the outlaws took an American ship's captain hostage. In other words, President Obama's most successful policies thus far have been his selective killings. It's not exactly a program he can build on.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Axelrod Stumbles
Wolf Blitzer decided to do his job in this clip where he really pushes David Axelrod on why they don't just allow competition of health insurance plans across state lines. I love it when Axelroad says it would be disruptive. As if pushing the country towards a single payer system is non-disruptive.
Race-based discipline
The latest and greatest idiotic idea to come out of a school board, this one in Tucson:
Because, we can't, of course, expect Black and Hispanic children to be held to the same standards as the White and Asian ones.
The board is calling for a two-tiered form of student discipline. One for Black and Hispanic students; one for everyone else.
With the goal of creating a "restorative school culture and climate" that conveys a "sense of belonging to all students," the board is insisting that its schools reduce its suspensions and/or expulsions of minority students to the point that the data reflect "no ethnic/racial disparities."
From the section of the 52-page plan titled "Restorative School Culture and Climate," subhead, "Discipline":
"School data that show disparities in suspension/expulsion rates will be examined in detail for root causes. Special attention will be dedicated to data regarding African-American and Hispanic students."
The board approved creating an "Equity Team" that will oversee the plan to ensure "a commitment to social justice for all students."
The happy-face edu-speak notwithstanding, what the Tucson Unified School District board of governors has approved this summer is a race-based system of discipline.
Offenses by students will be judged, and penalties meted out, depending on the student's hue.
Because, we can't, of course, expect Black and Hispanic children to be held to the same standards as the White and Asian ones.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.Not yet, apparently.
Rowdy Teenagers
The Nanny State views all citizens as children who need to be led and controlled by their wise and kind leaders, they just rarely make their intentions as obvious as Stephen Chu, Obama's Energy Secretary:
When it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions, Energy Secretary Steven Chu sees Americans as unruly teenagers and the Administration as the parent that will have to teach them a few lessons.
Speaking on the sidelines of a smart grid conference in Washington, Dr. Chu said he didn’t think average folks had the know-how or will to to change their behavior enough to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
“The American public . . . just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act,” Dr. Chu said. “The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.” (In that case, the Energy Department has a few renegade teens of its own.)
Quote of the Day
"In science or business, bad ideas are quickly eliminated, but in government and academia, the beloved abstraction of some tenured pinhead can live on forever"
--Gagdad Bob
(Follow the link and read the entire post)
--Gagdad Bob
(Follow the link and read the entire post)
No Freedom Of Speech for Insurance Companies
Max Baucus, a "moderate", censors Humana:
Earlier this month, Humana sent a one-page letter to its customers enrolled in its Medicare Advantage plans, which offer private options to Medicare beneficiaries. Humana noted that, because of spending cuts proposed by Democrats, "millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable." The Kentucky-based company also urged its customers to contact their Representatives. Pretty tame stuff, as these things go.
Mr. Baucus took it as a declaration of war. He complained to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal health-care agency, which on Friday duly ordered Humana to cease and desist. CMS claimed the mailer was "misleading and confusing" and told the company it has opened an official probe as to whether the mailer violated laws about how the insurers that manage Advantage plans are allowed to communicate with their customers, as well as other federal statutes.
"Please be advised that we take this matter very seriously and, based upon the findings our investigation, will pursue compliance and enforcement actions," CMS concluded, ominously. Humana could be fined or booted from Medicare Advantage altogether.
"It is wholly inappropriate for insurance companies to mislead seniors regarding any subject—particularly on a subject as important to them, and to the nation, as health-care reform," Mr. Baucus said in a statement yesterday, playing the role of Congressional censor. "The health-care reform bill we released last week strengthens Medicare and does not cut benefits covered under the Medicare program—and seniors need to know that."
In fact, the Baucus draft legislation slashes $123 billion over the next decade from Medicare Advantage, which Democrats hate despite the fact that almost one-fourth of beneficiaries have chosen it over traditional fee-for-service Medicare. One reason seniors like it is because private insurers focus on quality and preventive care and try to manage benefits, as opposed to simply paying bills.
A new study from America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry trade group, finds that seniors on Advantage in California spent 30% fewer days in hospitals over fee-for-service patients, based on federal data. Democrats say that insurers are "overpaid," but the cuts—as Humana correctly noted—mean that seniors may lose this coverage.
Mr. Baucus doesn't want seniors to be educated about these facts, and obviously he's willing to use his enormous power to punish any private company that doesn't affirm his, well, creative version of reality. Nearly half of Humana's yearly revenue comes from Medicare Advantage, and the insurer says that it is complying in full with the CMS investigation. Yesterday, the agency also barred all Advantage insurers from providing similar information to their beneficiaries.
You Lie! (On Taxes)
At his rate, Obama is really going to have to hire some people to edit Internet caches so he doesn't look like such an Ass:
Now check this out from the AP on the individual mandates in the health reform bills:
"I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
-Barack Obama, September 12, 2008
Now check this out from the AP on the individual mandates in the health reform bills:
Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.Just amazing. He started by saying he will only tax the rich and the first tax increases he puts forward are both highly regressive, disproportionately impacting the lower and middle classes.
And the reason the fines are in the legislation is to enforce the coverage requirement."If you put something in the Internal Revenue Code, and you tell the IRS to collect it, I think that's a tax," said Clint Stretch, head of the tax policy group for Deloitte, a major accounting firm. "If you don't pay, the person who's going to come and get it is going to be from the IRS."
...In an interview that aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Obama insisted that the insurance requirement is not a tax.
"For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase," the president said. "What it's saying is...that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore.
"Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance," Obama added. "Nobody considers that a tax increase.
"You just can't make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase," he added.
But a Democratic staff description of Sen. Max Baucus' bill calls the proposed fines an "excise tax." Initially, the Montana Democrat's plan called for penalties of up to $950 for individuals and $3,800 for families. But Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said Monday he expects the family penalty to be slashed in half to $1,900.
The House bill uses a complex formula to calculate the penalties, calling them a "tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage." People would report their insurance coverage on their tax returns.
The coverage mandate is part of a political bargain in which the insurance industry would agree to take all applicants, regardless of prior medical history.
"If we're going to have coverage without regard to pre-existing conditions, it makes sense," said economist Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center. "Otherwise people will come in the door the day they get sick." He sees no distinction between the requirement to get coverage and the fines themselves.
"The fact that it is imposed on people and they have no choice in paying it, and the fact that it's administered through the tax system all make it look like a tax," Williams said. The center is a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.
It wouldn't be the first asterisk added to Obama's campaign pledge on taxes. Earlier this year, he signed a tobacco tax increase to pay for children's health insurance. Even that can be read as a violation of his expansive campaign promise.
You Lie! (Again)
Obama really should stop trying to claim ignorance of ACORN:
Only one of the five television networks that interviewed President Obama for their Sunday shows bothered to ask him about Acorn, the left-wing community organizing group whose federal funding was cut off last week by an overwhelming vote in Congress.
"Frankly, it's not something I've followed closely," Mr. Obama claimed, adding he wasn't even aware the group had been the recipient of significant federal funding. "This is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to," he said.
Mr. Obama added that an investigation of Acorn was appropriate after an amateur hidden-camera investigation had found Acorn offices willing to abet prostitution, but he carefully declined to say whether he would approve a federal cutoff of funds to the group.
Mr. Obama took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn. In fact, his association goes back almost 20 years. In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella. The drive registered 135,000 voters and was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Democratic Senate primary.
Mr. Obama's success made him a hot commodity on the community organizing circuit. He became a top trainer at Acorn's Chicago conferences. In 1995, he became Acorn's attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law's loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by Acorn employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names.
In 1996, Mr. Obama filled out a questionnaire listing key supporters for his campaign for the Illinois Senate. He put Acorn first (it was not an alphabetical list). In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama became the leading critic of Voter ID laws, whose overturn was a top Acorn priority. In 2007, in a speech to Acorn's leaders prior to their political arm's endorsement of his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was effusive: "I've been fighting alongside of Acorn on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work."
But the Obama campaign didn't appear eager to discuss the candidate's ties to Acorn. Its press operation vividly denied Mr. Obama had been an Acorn trainer until the New York Times uncovered records demonstrating that he had been. The Obama campaign also gave Citizens Consulting, Inc., an Acorn subsidiary, $832,000 for get-out-the-vote activities in key primary states. In filings with the Federal Election Commission, the Obama campaign listed the payments as "staging, sound, lighting," only correcting the filings after the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review revealed their true nature.
Ralph Peters on Afghanistan
Ralph Peters continues to be right on the money on strategic/military affairs. By the way, I just started reading his book, The War After Armegeddon, which is a really disturbing view of the future (Israel a radioactive wasteland and the scene for a new set of Crusades and America is a theocracy). Here is part of his latest piece on Afghanistan:
Meanwhile, we've forgotten why we went to Afghanistan in the first place. (Hint: It wasn't to make nice with toothless tribesmen.) Here's a simple way to conceptualize our problem: A pack of murderous gangsters holes up in a fleabag motel. The feds raid the joint, killing or busting most of them. But some of the deadly ringleaders get away.
Should the G-men pursue the kingpins, or hang around to renovate the motel? Common sense says: Go after the gangsters. They're the problem, not the run-down bunkhouse.
Yet, in Afghanistan, we've put the bulk of our efforts into turning a vast flophouse into the Four Seasons -- instead of focusing ruthlessly on our terrorist enemies. It's politically correct madness.
What we really need is just a compact, lethal force of special operators, intelligence resources and air assets, along with sufficient conventional forces for protection and punitive raids. More troops just mean more blood and frustration.
Those who suggest pulling out completely and striking from offshore don't understand the fundamentals, either: We still need some boots on the ground, within grabbing distance of Pakistan's wild northwest, to strike fast to kill or capture elusive targets. And cruise missiles can't bring back prisoners, DNA samples or captured documents.
Our hunter-killer task forces should be deployed on a limited number of strategically positioned bases supported by air. Don't worry about the Afghan government -- Afghans don't.
The other alternative -- sending still more troops to die for Washington's fantasy of a Disney-World Afghanistan -- is disgraceful. Stop building sewage systems. Take scalps.
A Recommendation
Coyote Blog has been on my bloglist for years, but it has never been one of my daily reads, just something I check out occasionally. After reading several things there by following links in the past couple of days and then reading through recent entries more extensively I have no idea why it has passed under my radar for so long. It is a model of clear writing, clear thinking, logic & reason and has moved to my daily read list. Have a look.
Monday, September 21, 2009
ACORN and other nuts
You know the NYT and the rest of the MSM have sunk to new lows when they are all scooped by the NY Post. Here is an article summarizing the history of misdeeds by ACORN:
Follow the link for the whole piece.
THE BEGINNING
*ACORN is rooted in extreme far-left activism that wants to shut down the US government by overwhelming it with demands for welfare benefits and other forms of assistance.
"They don't like the American system of government, and would love for it to be overthrown," said ACORN expert Matthew Vadum, a senior editor at the conservative Capital Research Center in D.C.
"The whole goal is to transform America into a socialist country, or some form of socialist democracy. This group is dangerous."
*Founder Wade Rathke was a student at Williams College in 1969 and a member of the leftist Students for a New Democracy group when he dropped out to protest the Vietnam War full-time.
*Rathke began working for fiery activist George Wiley, a black radical who started the National Welfare Reform Organization in 1969. NWRO was created to help poor people sign up for more welfare benefits, with the goal of clogging and eventually grinding down US government systems.
*In 1970 Rathke was charged with inciting violence by Massachussetts police after a welfare rally he was leading turned into a riot. He was then sent to Arkansas to open up a new chapter of NWRO. But he began to hear rumors that Wiley was going to oust him from the organization. So he decided to start his own group — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
*In 1972 ACORN launched its first political initiative and backed two of its members who were running for the Little Rock School Board. Its efforts proved so successful that the group expanded beyond Arkansas and opened offices in Texas and South Dakota. Before long, it became a national group and started pushing its progressive political agenda.
*In 1999 Wade Rathke's brother Dale, also a major figure at ACORN, was caught embezzling nearly $1 million from the organization. His plundering was swept under the rug after the Rathke family promised to repay the debt. Both Wade and Dale Rathke remained on the payroll and the group didn't inform any of its board members about the theft, or contact authorities.
Follow the link for the whole piece.
Democrat culture of corruption
Fla. lawmaker tried to get funding for ACORN while wife was lobbyist
BY ALEX LEARYSt. Petersburg Times
A Democratic legislator from Orlando tried to get $50,000 in state funding for the controversial group ACORN in the 2007 legislative session, the same time his wife was working as a lobbyist for the organization, records show.
Rep. Scott Randolph was seeking money for the Central Florida ACORN Institute Financial Justice Center, which provides tax preparation services for the poor.
His wife, Susannah Lindberg, registered as a lobbyist during the 2007 session.
Normally a failed funding request that old would disappear into the legislative ether. But the widening national controversy over ACORN has renewed criticism over the group's dealings in Florida, including bogus voter registrations forms.
Some Republican lawmakers are demanding a review of any state connection to the group.
Randolph denied a conflict of interest, saying his wife did not push for the funding.
``She wasn't lobbying on that issue at all,'' he said Friday. ``She didn't even come up to Tallahassee that much. I don't find anything wrong with that.''
OVERLAPPING INTERESTS
But overlapping interests have raised issues before. Most recently, Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, faced questions in her passionate bid to save the state mental hospital in her district. Her husband, who operates an assisted-living facility that gets patients from Northeast Florida State Hospital, engaged in lobbying-like activity in the Capitol.
Randolph, a lawyer elected in 2006, filed the community budget issue request in January 2007. His wife registered to lobby in March.
Randolph said her role was mainly to bring ACORN members to Tallahassee. ``She didn't push it,'' he said of the funding request. ``I didn't push it. I just had other priorities.''
He scoffed at the suggestion of impropriety.
``I'm still waiting for Republicans to put the statements out about reviewing [funding obtained by former House Speakers] Ray Sansom and Marco Rubio. I would support them 100 percent in reviewing every single entity that has gotten state funding. To single out one organization just shows the lack of sincerity.''
He said his wife lobbied for ACORN, not the affiliate.
The money would have gone toward a tax preparation center, which helps people who might not know they are eligible for certain breaks, such as the earned income tax credit.
`DISGUSTED'
ACORN Florida director Stephanie Porta said that about 4,300 low-income people in Florida got free tax help over the past two years, resulting in about $5 million in money in their pockets.
She called questions about Randolph ``disgusting'' and blasted Rubio's questioning this week of Gov. Charlie Crist, who has met with ACORN members to address the foreclosure crisis. Lindberg now works for U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando. On Thursday, Grayson voted for an amendment denying federal funding to ACORN.
BY ALEX LEARYSt. Petersburg Times
A Democratic legislator from Orlando tried to get $50,000 in state funding for the controversial group ACORN in the 2007 legislative session, the same time his wife was working as a lobbyist for the organization, records show.
Rep. Scott Randolph was seeking money for the Central Florida ACORN Institute Financial Justice Center, which provides tax preparation services for the poor.
His wife, Susannah Lindberg, registered as a lobbyist during the 2007 session.
Normally a failed funding request that old would disappear into the legislative ether. But the widening national controversy over ACORN has renewed criticism over the group's dealings in Florida, including bogus voter registrations forms.
Some Republican lawmakers are demanding a review of any state connection to the group.
Randolph denied a conflict of interest, saying his wife did not push for the funding.
``She wasn't lobbying on that issue at all,'' he said Friday. ``She didn't even come up to Tallahassee that much. I don't find anything wrong with that.''
OVERLAPPING INTERESTS
But overlapping interests have raised issues before. Most recently, Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, faced questions in her passionate bid to save the state mental hospital in her district. Her husband, who operates an assisted-living facility that gets patients from Northeast Florida State Hospital, engaged in lobbying-like activity in the Capitol.
Randolph, a lawyer elected in 2006, filed the community budget issue request in January 2007. His wife registered to lobby in March.
Randolph said her role was mainly to bring ACORN members to Tallahassee. ``She didn't push it,'' he said of the funding request. ``I didn't push it. I just had other priorities.''
He scoffed at the suggestion of impropriety.
``I'm still waiting for Republicans to put the statements out about reviewing [funding obtained by former House Speakers] Ray Sansom and Marco Rubio. I would support them 100 percent in reviewing every single entity that has gotten state funding. To single out one organization just shows the lack of sincerity.''
He said his wife lobbied for ACORN, not the affiliate.
The money would have gone toward a tax preparation center, which helps people who might not know they are eligible for certain breaks, such as the earned income tax credit.
`DISGUSTED'
ACORN Florida director Stephanie Porta said that about 4,300 low-income people in Florida got free tax help over the past two years, resulting in about $5 million in money in their pockets.
She called questions about Randolph ``disgusting'' and blasted Rubio's questioning this week of Gov. Charlie Crist, who has met with ACORN members to address the foreclosure crisis. Lindberg now works for U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando. On Thursday, Grayson voted for an amendment denying federal funding to ACORN.
Using federal grants for propaganda purposes
Pregame Report: The NEA Conference Call
On August 25th 2009, Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche broke the story of a conference call he attended with other “rising artist and art community luminaries”:
On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change!”
The email invite came directly from Yosi Sergant, then-Director of Communications at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and it advised this hand-picked group that the call was about laying “a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.”
Courrielche describes the call this way:
Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were “health care” and “energy and environment.” The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans.
It sounded, how should I phrase it…unusual, that the NEA would invite the art community to a meeting to discuss issues currently under vehement national debate. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me.
Within 48 hours of this phone call, 21 arts organizations endorsed President Obama’s health-care reform plan. Within days, Rock the Vote started an all out blitz that included a “health care design contest.”
The NEA’s Yosi Sergant
On August 27th, two days after Courrielche’s piece published on Big Hollywood, the Washington Times picked up on the story, contacted Sergant and asked him about the call. Sergant claimed to be only a “participant in a call” and then lied outright claiming the conference call email invites were sent by a “third party,” not the NEA.
Courrielche’s August 31st follow-up piece, which included copies of Sergant’s email invite, proved the complete opposite was true.
The next day, September 1st, the Washington Times posted copies of Sergant’s invites from Courrielche’s Big Hollywood piece along with their own transcript of Sergant denying he sent the invites. They titled their piece: “Official Dishonesty From the NEA.”
On September 6th, columnist George Will brought the story into the mainstream media when, on “This Week,” he wondered aloud just how many laws the August 10th conference call had broken.
On September 10th, the Washington Times followed the money trail and published the explosive news that of the 21 arts organizations who endorsed President Obama’s health care reform plan…
“…16 of the groups and affiliated organizations received nearly $2 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in the 150 days before the conference call. According to a Washington Times analysis of NEA records, more than $1 million of that total came from the stimulus package.
September 10th was a rough day for the NEA. The same day the troubling money trail was revealed, Yosi Sergant was “reassigned.” The NEA has yet to explain why Sergant was “reassigned.” This is the only statement they released:
“On August tenth, the National Endowment for the Arts participated in a call with arts organizations to inform them of the president’s call to national service. The White House office of public engagement also participated in the call, which provided information on how the Corporation for National and Community Service can assist groups interested in sponsoring service projects or having their members volunteer on other projects. This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false. The NEA regularly does outreach to various organizations to inform of the work we are doing and the resources available to them.”
That same day, the Washington Times looked at this statement, looked at the evidence, and declared “The NEA Lies Again.”
Patrick Courrielche, who was a participant on the call, agrees:
It just goes against my core beliefs to sit quietly while the art community is used by the NEA and the administration to push an agenda other than the one for which it was created. It is not within the National Endowment for the Arts’ original charter to initiate, organize, and tap into the art community to help bring awareness to health care, or energy & environmental issues for that matter; and especially not at a time when it is being vehemently debated. Artists shouldn’t be used as tools of the state to help create a climate amenable to their positions, which is what appears to be happening in this instance. If the art community wants to tackle those issues on its own then fine. But tackling them shouldn’t come as an encouragement from the NEA to those they potentially fund at this coincidental time.
In his September 18th Washington Post column, George Will sides with Courrielche:
“The NEA is the nation’s largest single source of financial support for the arts, and its grants often prompt supplemental private donations. He who pays the piper does indeed call the tune, and in the four months before the conference call, 16 of the participating organizations received a total of nearly $2 million from the NEA. Two days after the call, the 16 and five other organizations issued a plea for the president’s health-care plan. …
“[T]he Obama administration is tightening the cinch on subsidized artists, conscripting them into the crusade to further politicize the 17 percent of the economy that is health care.
That Obama administration officials would make even tacit suggestions about potential artistic output to a collection of federal grant recipients is, itself, troubling. That these suggestions matched-up with very specific and time-sensitive legislative priorities should give us all pause.
Buffy Wicks
But, there is even a larger issue that hasn’t yet received much attention in the press. Among the Obama Administration officials on the call were Buffy Wicks, Office of Public Engagement and the lead White House official on the President’s Serve.Gov initiative to promote national service. Also on the call was Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for Serve.Gov. One of their main goals on the call, it seems, was to encourage artists to produce works that would reinforce the President’s call for service; specifically through the Serve.Gov web-portal.
As Dana Loesch recently reported at Big Government, the Serve.Gov portal funnels citizens to volunteer or service projects connected with ACORN and other leftist groups. The taxpayer-funded website is evolving into a cyber-recruitment tool for the progressive movement.
So what did happen on that call? Was the NEA coordinating with the White House to push their agenda on a group of artists eager for and reliant upon the NEA for grants, or is the NEA telling the truth that this call “was not a means to promote any legislative agenda”?
Tomorrow at noon ET, explosive new information will answer that question and raise many others.
On August 25th 2009, Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche broke the story of a conference call he attended with other “rising artist and art community luminaries”:
On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change!”
The email invite came directly from Yosi Sergant, then-Director of Communications at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and it advised this hand-picked group that the call was about laying “a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.”
Courrielche describes the call this way:
Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were “health care” and “energy and environment.” The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans.
It sounded, how should I phrase it…unusual, that the NEA would invite the art community to a meeting to discuss issues currently under vehement national debate. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me.
Within 48 hours of this phone call, 21 arts organizations endorsed President Obama’s health-care reform plan. Within days, Rock the Vote started an all out blitz that included a “health care design contest.”
The NEA’s Yosi Sergant
On August 27th, two days after Courrielche’s piece published on Big Hollywood, the Washington Times picked up on the story, contacted Sergant and asked him about the call. Sergant claimed to be only a “participant in a call” and then lied outright claiming the conference call email invites were sent by a “third party,” not the NEA.
Courrielche’s August 31st follow-up piece, which included copies of Sergant’s email invite, proved the complete opposite was true.
The next day, September 1st, the Washington Times posted copies of Sergant’s invites from Courrielche’s Big Hollywood piece along with their own transcript of Sergant denying he sent the invites. They titled their piece: “Official Dishonesty From the NEA.”
On September 6th, columnist George Will brought the story into the mainstream media when, on “This Week,” he wondered aloud just how many laws the August 10th conference call had broken.
On September 10th, the Washington Times followed the money trail and published the explosive news that of the 21 arts organizations who endorsed President Obama’s health care reform plan…
“…16 of the groups and affiliated organizations received nearly $2 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in the 150 days before the conference call. According to a Washington Times analysis of NEA records, more than $1 million of that total came from the stimulus package.
September 10th was a rough day for the NEA. The same day the troubling money trail was revealed, Yosi Sergant was “reassigned.” The NEA has yet to explain why Sergant was “reassigned.” This is the only statement they released:
“On August tenth, the National Endowment for the Arts participated in a call with arts organizations to inform them of the president’s call to national service. The White House office of public engagement also participated in the call, which provided information on how the Corporation for National and Community Service can assist groups interested in sponsoring service projects or having their members volunteer on other projects. This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false. The NEA regularly does outreach to various organizations to inform of the work we are doing and the resources available to them.”
That same day, the Washington Times looked at this statement, looked at the evidence, and declared “The NEA Lies Again.”
Patrick Courrielche, who was a participant on the call, agrees:
It just goes against my core beliefs to sit quietly while the art community is used by the NEA and the administration to push an agenda other than the one for which it was created. It is not within the National Endowment for the Arts’ original charter to initiate, organize, and tap into the art community to help bring awareness to health care, or energy & environmental issues for that matter; and especially not at a time when it is being vehemently debated. Artists shouldn’t be used as tools of the state to help create a climate amenable to their positions, which is what appears to be happening in this instance. If the art community wants to tackle those issues on its own then fine. But tackling them shouldn’t come as an encouragement from the NEA to those they potentially fund at this coincidental time.
In his September 18th Washington Post column, George Will sides with Courrielche:
“The NEA is the nation’s largest single source of financial support for the arts, and its grants often prompt supplemental private donations. He who pays the piper does indeed call the tune, and in the four months before the conference call, 16 of the participating organizations received a total of nearly $2 million from the NEA. Two days after the call, the 16 and five other organizations issued a plea for the president’s health-care plan. …
“[T]he Obama administration is tightening the cinch on subsidized artists, conscripting them into the crusade to further politicize the 17 percent of the economy that is health care.
That Obama administration officials would make even tacit suggestions about potential artistic output to a collection of federal grant recipients is, itself, troubling. That these suggestions matched-up with very specific and time-sensitive legislative priorities should give us all pause.
Buffy Wicks
But, there is even a larger issue that hasn’t yet received much attention in the press. Among the Obama Administration officials on the call were Buffy Wicks, Office of Public Engagement and the lead White House official on the President’s Serve.Gov initiative to promote national service. Also on the call was Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for Serve.Gov. One of their main goals on the call, it seems, was to encourage artists to produce works that would reinforce the President’s call for service; specifically through the Serve.Gov web-portal.
As Dana Loesch recently reported at Big Government, the Serve.Gov portal funnels citizens to volunteer or service projects connected with ACORN and other leftist groups. The taxpayer-funded website is evolving into a cyber-recruitment tool for the progressive movement.
So what did happen on that call? Was the NEA coordinating with the White House to push their agenda on a group of artists eager for and reliant upon the NEA for grants, or is the NEA telling the truth that this call “was not a means to promote any legislative agenda”?
Tomorrow at noon ET, explosive new information will answer that question and raise many others.
Outrageous idea...
Obama open to newspaper bailout bill
By Michael O'Brien - 09/20/09 04:24 PM ET
The president said he is "happy to look at" bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses."I haven't seen detailed proposals yet, but I'll be happy to look at them," Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called "Newspaper Revitalization Act," that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin's Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had played down the possibility of government assistance for news organizations, which have been hit by an economic downturn and dwindling ad revenue.In early May, Gibbs said that while he hadn't asked the president specifically about bailout options for newspapers, "I don't know what, in all honesty, government can do about it."Obama said that good journalism is "critical to the health of our democracy," but expressed concern toward growing tends in reporting -- especially on political blogs, from which a groundswell of support for his campaign emerged during the presidential election."I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said.
By Michael O'Brien - 09/20/09 04:24 PM ET
The president said he is "happy to look at" bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses."I haven't seen detailed proposals yet, but I'll be happy to look at them," Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called "Newspaper Revitalization Act," that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin's Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had played down the possibility of government assistance for news organizations, which have been hit by an economic downturn and dwindling ad revenue.In early May, Gibbs said that while he hadn't asked the president specifically about bailout options for newspapers, "I don't know what, in all honesty, government can do about it."Obama said that good journalism is "critical to the health of our democracy," but expressed concern toward growing tends in reporting -- especially on political blogs, from which a groundswell of support for his campaign emerged during the presidential election."I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said.
You will pay for something you don't want, don't read, don't believe forever. Separation of the press from government control is a basic building block for freedom. I believe if the Democrats try this the outcry will be huge.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
This is especially true for Progressives
Ideology of a Liberal
by Frank DeMartini
Since the health care debate has wound down a little as a result of President Obama’s speech on Wednesday which, by the way, was pure rhetoric and seen by the general public and pundits as a failure because of its lack of new ideas and detail, I have decided to tackle a subject other than health care reform in this article. What makes a liberal tick? Why are there such major differences between the two parties in this country?
The other day I was playing on Facebook and saw a number of posts from my liberal friends regarding health care. The comments posted were all similar. No one should go without health care in this country and no one should go broke because they got sick. Why only liberals would post this amazes me, because there are not too many people in the world that disagree. However, it is just not that simple.
In response, I posted a few comments. The majority of them were along the line of “Yes, I agree too, but who is going to pay for it and how is it going to work?” Almost universally, the liberal responses were either “The Rich,” or “Bring the Troops Back from Iraq and Afghanistan.” I then realized that most thinking from Liberals is not based upon logic. In fact, from these responses, it appears liberal thinking is idealist and based upon emotion. This has been argued in the past by both Ann Coulter and Dennis Prager among others. I now agree.
Whether you agree with the War on Terror is not the issue. The troops are committed. You cannot simply bring them back. To think that bringing them back can be accomplished overnight is not to think realistically. You must leave them there as long as necessary to accomplish your goals or to train the local military to do it themselves. In Iraq because of the surge, this is quickly happening. In Afghanistan, it is a different story.
The Afghanistan situation is beginning to look like Vietnam. Either we make the commitment to beat the Taliban or we will be involved in a war of attrition which cannot be won. President Obama must take the steps necessary to accomplish the goal. Anything short of that will give the Taliban and Al Qaeda the foothold they need to take over the Afghanistan government again and to possibly move on Pakistan to get control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. This is unacceptable.
The second response “The Rich” is also idealistic. How much more taxation do you think the rich are going to take before they completely revolt? The middle class and blue collar workers at the Tea Parties on Saturday show that they are fed up. And, they are not paying nearly as much of their income as the rich. If you add another 5% to the marginal tax rate as proposed in HR 3200, most of The Rich will be paying almost 50% of their income in taxes before state income taxes are even considered. In California and New York, that is more than 10%. (This analysis includes sales taxes, property taxes, luxury taxes, etc., as well as income taxes and other income withholding). And, you wonder why people are leaving California for Nevada, Arizona, Washington and other low tax states by the thousands. People; rich, middle class or poor, will just not tolerate more.
As shown by the previous examples, both responses given me last week by the liberals are just not realistic. They are based upon emotion. There is no logic behind them. Hence we have the major difference. Conservatives think logically and based upon the reality seen in facts and figures. Liberals think emotionally and from idealistic goals and ambitions. The two do not mix.
Let us examine a few other examples:
What about the current Administration’s outlook on foreign affairs? President Obama, during his campaign, said that he would talk and negotiate with the radicals in Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. Since he has become President, what has this policy gotten him; nothing. Iran continues its nuclear ambitions unabated. Venezuela continues poking its nose at the United States and its President. And, North Korea does whatever it wants and will soon, not only have nuclear weapons, but will also have missiles capable of delivering them.
Most recently, the tape from Osama Bin Laden is just another example of the failure of President’s Obama’s policy. After his speech in Egypt, everyone on the left believed the Radical Moslems would change their attitude towards the United States. All one has to do is listen to Bin Laden’s tape released in the last two days to realize that the emotional based thinking of the left is a far cry from the realism of the situation.
In the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the President says that Israel should cease building settlements. The Prime Minister of Israel agrees in principle provided that the Palestinians agree to recognize Israel’s right to exist. The Palestinians say ‘no’ and Israel continues its expansion into the West Bank. Another failure of idealism on the Administration’s part
Those that truly understand foreign affairs could have predicted these outcomes. Learning from the past and the use of logic as done by conservatives, works. The emotion and idealism of the left does not. The Left’s desire for everything to be right and for everything to be fair controls their policy. Unfortunately, this is not reality. And, hopefully, President Obama is beginning to get it now too. All evidence however is to the contrary.
The same is true with “Cap and Trade” and “Health Care Reform.” Both liberal positions are based upon idealism and emotion. Everyone would like to lower carbon emissions and make the environment a better place. Everyone would love universal health care. But, the fact of the matter is that “Cap and Trade” will cause many businesses in this country to fail and for those that do not fail, there will be many lost jobs. The realism behind Health Care Reform or any of the plans under consideration by Congress now would bankrupt the country. There is no plan that is revenue neutral at this point.
In all of these situations, the liberal agenda is fueled by idealism and emotion. Maybe, if liberals started thinking logically and based upon the realities of the world, there would be less partisanship in Congress and more could be accomplished. Emotion is no way to govern this or any other country.
by Frank DeMartini
Since the health care debate has wound down a little as a result of President Obama’s speech on Wednesday which, by the way, was pure rhetoric and seen by the general public and pundits as a failure because of its lack of new ideas and detail, I have decided to tackle a subject other than health care reform in this article. What makes a liberal tick? Why are there such major differences between the two parties in this country?
The other day I was playing on Facebook and saw a number of posts from my liberal friends regarding health care. The comments posted were all similar. No one should go without health care in this country and no one should go broke because they got sick. Why only liberals would post this amazes me, because there are not too many people in the world that disagree. However, it is just not that simple.
In response, I posted a few comments. The majority of them were along the line of “Yes, I agree too, but who is going to pay for it and how is it going to work?” Almost universally, the liberal responses were either “The Rich,” or “Bring the Troops Back from Iraq and Afghanistan.” I then realized that most thinking from Liberals is not based upon logic. In fact, from these responses, it appears liberal thinking is idealist and based upon emotion. This has been argued in the past by both Ann Coulter and Dennis Prager among others. I now agree.
Whether you agree with the War on Terror is not the issue. The troops are committed. You cannot simply bring them back. To think that bringing them back can be accomplished overnight is not to think realistically. You must leave them there as long as necessary to accomplish your goals or to train the local military to do it themselves. In Iraq because of the surge, this is quickly happening. In Afghanistan, it is a different story.
The Afghanistan situation is beginning to look like Vietnam. Either we make the commitment to beat the Taliban or we will be involved in a war of attrition which cannot be won. President Obama must take the steps necessary to accomplish the goal. Anything short of that will give the Taliban and Al Qaeda the foothold they need to take over the Afghanistan government again and to possibly move on Pakistan to get control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. This is unacceptable.
The second response “The Rich” is also idealistic. How much more taxation do you think the rich are going to take before they completely revolt? The middle class and blue collar workers at the Tea Parties on Saturday show that they are fed up. And, they are not paying nearly as much of their income as the rich. If you add another 5% to the marginal tax rate as proposed in HR 3200, most of The Rich will be paying almost 50% of their income in taxes before state income taxes are even considered. In California and New York, that is more than 10%. (This analysis includes sales taxes, property taxes, luxury taxes, etc., as well as income taxes and other income withholding). And, you wonder why people are leaving California for Nevada, Arizona, Washington and other low tax states by the thousands. People; rich, middle class or poor, will just not tolerate more.
As shown by the previous examples, both responses given me last week by the liberals are just not realistic. They are based upon emotion. There is no logic behind them. Hence we have the major difference. Conservatives think logically and based upon the reality seen in facts and figures. Liberals think emotionally and from idealistic goals and ambitions. The two do not mix.
Let us examine a few other examples:
What about the current Administration’s outlook on foreign affairs? President Obama, during his campaign, said that he would talk and negotiate with the radicals in Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. Since he has become President, what has this policy gotten him; nothing. Iran continues its nuclear ambitions unabated. Venezuela continues poking its nose at the United States and its President. And, North Korea does whatever it wants and will soon, not only have nuclear weapons, but will also have missiles capable of delivering them.
Most recently, the tape from Osama Bin Laden is just another example of the failure of President’s Obama’s policy. After his speech in Egypt, everyone on the left believed the Radical Moslems would change their attitude towards the United States. All one has to do is listen to Bin Laden’s tape released in the last two days to realize that the emotional based thinking of the left is a far cry from the realism of the situation.
In the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the President says that Israel should cease building settlements. The Prime Minister of Israel agrees in principle provided that the Palestinians agree to recognize Israel’s right to exist. The Palestinians say ‘no’ and Israel continues its expansion into the West Bank. Another failure of idealism on the Administration’s part
Those that truly understand foreign affairs could have predicted these outcomes. Learning from the past and the use of logic as done by conservatives, works. The emotion and idealism of the left does not. The Left’s desire for everything to be right and for everything to be fair controls their policy. Unfortunately, this is not reality. And, hopefully, President Obama is beginning to get it now too. All evidence however is to the contrary.
The same is true with “Cap and Trade” and “Health Care Reform.” Both liberal positions are based upon idealism and emotion. Everyone would like to lower carbon emissions and make the environment a better place. Everyone would love universal health care. But, the fact of the matter is that “Cap and Trade” will cause many businesses in this country to fail and for those that do not fail, there will be many lost jobs. The realism behind Health Care Reform or any of the plans under consideration by Congress now would bankrupt the country. There is no plan that is revenue neutral at this point.
In all of these situations, the liberal agenda is fueled by idealism and emotion. Maybe, if liberals started thinking logically and based upon the realities of the world, there would be less partisanship in Congress and more could be accomplished. Emotion is no way to govern this or any other country.
Congressman Joe Wilson was right and a bald faced liar at that
Obama on ACORN: 'Not Something I've Followed Closely' Won't Commit to Cut Federal Funds
He has a long history linking him to ACORN and he will in the end help them no matter what they do. He served as their lawyer. They are an integral part of his machine: ACORN/SEIU/UAW.
Sometimes it's the small gestures that count
Dog's No. 1 greeting for evil Libyan strongman Moammar KhadafyRead more: http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/pets/2009/09/20/2009-09-20_dogs_no_1_greeting_for_evil_libyan_strongman_moammar_khadafy.html#ixzz0RfV3j4Tg
And, what is his suggestion if Iran attacks Israel?
Brezinski Calls for Obama to Shoot Down Israeli Jets; "A Liberty in Reverse"
In a little noticed interview with the Daily Beast (presumably little noticed because serious people don't read the Daily Beast), Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Barack Obama do more than just refuse to support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites -- the American president must give the order to shoot down Israeli aircraft as they cross Iraqi airspace:
DB: How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest?
Brzezinski: We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?
DB: What if they fly over anyway?
Brzezinski: Well, we have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a Liberty in reverse.
Contrary to Brezinski's half-hearted disclaimer that no one wishes for such an outcome, there are plenty on the left who would delight in a pitched battle between the United States and Israel. Democrats in Congress routinely support resolutions affirming Israel's right to take whatever steps it deems necessary to assure its own national defense. And Obama has at least paid lip service to the concept. But hostility to Israel among the rank and file is very real on the left -- and among "realists."
So conjure the image -- the Obama administration sending U.S. aircraft up to protect Iran's airspace and it's nuclear installations from an attack by a democracy that is one of America's closest allies. Unfortunately, this may not be so hard to imagine in Israel, where the number of people who believe Obama is pro-Israel is at just 4 percent -- and falling. And given Obama's (literally) submissive posture to the Saudis, his indulgence of the Iranians, and his simultaneously hard-line approach to Israel, it seems even some of Obama's supporters can savor the possibility of a "reverse Liberty."
In a little noticed interview with the Daily Beast (presumably little noticed because serious people don't read the Daily Beast), Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Barack Obama do more than just refuse to support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites -- the American president must give the order to shoot down Israeli aircraft as they cross Iraqi airspace:
DB: How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest?
Brzezinski: We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?
DB: What if they fly over anyway?
Brzezinski: Well, we have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a Liberty in reverse.
Contrary to Brezinski's half-hearted disclaimer that no one wishes for such an outcome, there are plenty on the left who would delight in a pitched battle between the United States and Israel. Democrats in Congress routinely support resolutions affirming Israel's right to take whatever steps it deems necessary to assure its own national defense. And Obama has at least paid lip service to the concept. But hostility to Israel among the rank and file is very real on the left -- and among "realists."
So conjure the image -- the Obama administration sending U.S. aircraft up to protect Iran's airspace and it's nuclear installations from an attack by a democracy that is one of America's closest allies. Unfortunately, this may not be so hard to imagine in Israel, where the number of people who believe Obama is pro-Israel is at just 4 percent -- and falling. And given Obama's (literally) submissive posture to the Saudis, his indulgence of the Iranians, and his simultaneously hard-line approach to Israel, it seems even some of Obama's supporters can savor the possibility of a "reverse Liberty."
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Remember leftists are exempt from the rules
Will the WaPo investigate, Not.
New York Times Company humiliates itself in public
Thomas Lifson
This just looks bad. Really bad. The New York Times Company has been required to reveal startling management incompetence, an inability to correctly apply its own executive compensation scheme to the top two figures in the company, overpaying the bosses. Publicly-traded corporations like the Times must file a Form 8K within four days of various events, so the details of the screw-up are now on the record. The company filed the 8K following the end of trading yesterday. A summary of the substance is here.
It is deeply embarrassing to have to admit that your level of management professionalism is so low that you can't follow your own rules. The top admitting that it overpaid itself makes it worse. But when the two executives discovered to be hauling away a bit too much lucre turn out to be Pinch Sulzberger and Janet Robinson, on whose watch the company's fortunes have plummeted, the whole thing becomes a sick joke on the shareholders.
Even worse, the two beneficiaries of the excess largesse, who are also the two people responsible for maintaining a level of management sufficient to follow the rules, are not going to lose anything! The company is actually going to make them whole.
Mark Fitzgerald and Jennifer Saba of Editor & Publisher write:
... to compensate the two for the lost value, the board of directors' compensation committee drafted up a new plan granting "replacement" SARs, or stock appreciation rights. Both Robinson and Sulzberger enjoy million dollar-plus salaries with upside potential of 200% under the company's bonus compensation scheme. This at a time when the newsroom endures layoffs and printers have lost their high paying blue collar livelihoods. Sacrifice is the order of the day in the ranks.
It seems to me that on a symbolic level this action in making the poeple responsible for the mess whole is incredibly stupid. The two people at the top helped themselves to more than was allowed. And when the error is discovered they get rewarded. The editorial staff and the general public see all this.
This doesn't sound like the proper way to rescue a failing company, which needs the loyalty of its employees and customers. People take their cues from the behavior at the top. In Japan, the honorable thing to do would be to resign in disgrace.
All the bad things I thought about Albright are true
Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright took part in the forum too. She particularly participated in the meeting titled “Non-Economic Aspects of Entrepreneurship.”
Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Albright said during the meeting that America no longer had the intention of being the first nation of the world.
Ms. Albright started her speech in Russian. “Hello and thank you! It’s a pleasure for me to be here,” she said in Russian. Albright wrote in her autobiography that she was trying to learn some Russian during the 1960s.
The former US Secretary of State surprised the audience with her speech. She particularly said that democracy was not the perfect system. “It can be contradictory, corrupt and may have security problems,” Albright said.
America has been having hard times recently, Albright said.
“We have been talking about our exceptionalism during the recent eight years. Now, an average American wants to stay at home – they do not need any overseas adventures. We do not need new enemies,” Albright said adding that Beijing, London and Delhi became a serious competition for Washington and New York.
“My generation has made many mistakes. We give the future into the hands of the young. Your prime goal is to overcome the gap between the poor and the rich,’ the former head of the US foreign political department said.
Read the originals in Russia here and here
Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Albright said during the meeting that America no longer had the intention of being the first nation of the world.
Ms. Albright started her speech in Russian. “Hello and thank you! It’s a pleasure for me to be here,” she said in Russian. Albright wrote in her autobiography that she was trying to learn some Russian during the 1960s.
The former US Secretary of State surprised the audience with her speech. She particularly said that democracy was not the perfect system. “It can be contradictory, corrupt and may have security problems,” Albright said.
America has been having hard times recently, Albright said.
“We have been talking about our exceptionalism during the recent eight years. Now, an average American wants to stay at home – they do not need any overseas adventures. We do not need new enemies,” Albright said adding that Beijing, London and Delhi became a serious competition for Washington and New York.
“My generation has made many mistakes. We give the future into the hands of the young. Your prime goal is to overcome the gap between the poor and the rich,’ the former head of the US foreign political department said.
Read the originals in Russia here and here
Want a government that looks like a university?
It dawned on me that there is nothing in the business world that replicates the totalitarian nature of the university. All Obama's lefty types are comfortable with authoritarianism since it is how they've always operated. Plus, they think they're the teachers and so much smarter then the rest of us.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Ahmed & Salim
Imagine if the South Park creators did a show about Palestinian terrorism. With that intro, click this link and watch the show Ahmed and Salim. It's hilarious. Pay attention to the audio, it's not arabic but a fake language which is hilarious by itself.
The Swedish Foreign Minister Comes Clean
Check out this video making fun of the Scandinavians for recent anti-semitic and anti-Israeli actions.
Wolf Blitzer: a smart liberal. Bwahahaha
http://www.politico.com/click/stories/0909/wolf_bombs_on_jeopardy.html
What an incompetent. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could get other mainstream media types to go on the show. Perhaps then they might learn they're not smarter then the proles.
The Innovation Tax
The Baucus plan would create a 10-30% surcharge on medical device manufacturers:
Supposedly the Senate’s version of ObamaCare was written by Finance Chairman Max Baucus, but we’re beginning to wonder if the true authors were Abbott and Costello. The vaudeville logic of the plan is that Congress will tax health care to subsidize people to buy health care that new taxes and regulation make more expensive.
Look no further than the $40 billion "fee" that Mr. Baucus wants to impose on medical devices and diagnostic equipment. Device manufacturers would pay $4 billion a year in excise taxes, divvied up among them based on U.S. sales. This translates to an annual income tax surcharge anywhere from 10% to 30%, depending on the corporation.
Why $40 billion? No reason in particular, except that Mr. Baucus needs to finance nearly $900 billion in new spending and so he'll grab anything within arm's reach. While there are some exemptions, such as tongue depressors and eyeglasses, most of the devices tax will fall on hundreds of thousands of products that are basic components of modern medicine. Some are routine—surgical equipment, diabetes testing supplies—while others are cutting-edge technologies, like replacement joints, pacemakers, stents, and MRI and CT scanners.
This new tax will eventually be passed through to patients, increasing health-care costs. It will also harm innovation, taking a big bite out of the research and development that leads to medical advancements. The core of the industry (excluding a few conglomerates like Johnson & Johnson) spent about $9.6 billion on product development in 2007, according to Ernst and Young. The Baucus tax is nearly half that, and also exceeds $3.7 billion, the total venture capital invested in device makers that same year.
You Lie!
It appears that Joe Wilson was right on the money. Obama said that the healthcare plan won't cover illegals. What he didn't say was that he will push to make the illegals legal:
So besides Saul Alinsky, Obama seems to be getting pointers from President Clark.
It reminds me of an episode of Babylon 5 when this blonde from the ministry of propaganda (or whatever it was called) came aboard the ship to be the new "political officer" and was telling Captain Sheridan about how many of the problems Earth had been facing have been eliminated:"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.
Mr. Obama added, "If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all."
Musante: Earth doesn’t have homeless. Yes, there are some displaced people here and there, but they’ve chosen to be in that position. They’re either lazy or they’re criminal or they’re mentally unstable.
Sheridan: They can’t get a job
Musante: EarthGov has promised a job to anyone that wants one. So if someone doesn’t have a job, they must not want one.
Sheridan: Poverty?
Musante: It’s the same.
Sheridan: Crime?
Musante: Yes, there is some, but it’s all caused by the mentally unstable. And we’ve just instituted correctional centers to filter them out at an early age.
Sheridan: Prejudice
Musante: No, we’re just one happy planet. Well, alright, there’s the Marsies, but that won’t change until they stop fighting the Earth Rule.
Sheridan: And when exactly did all this happen?
Musante: When we rewrote the dictionary. Captain, you’re a good man, you’re a fine soldier, a leader. You understand that sometimes, before you can deal with a problem you have to redefine it.
So besides Saul Alinsky, Obama seems to be getting pointers from President Clark.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Isn't Obama supposed to have a more sensitive foreign policy?
So on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, Obama has announced he is dumping the missile shield agreement with the Czech Republic and Poland. Wasn't Obama supposed to embody a kindler, gentler foreign policy? In order to not understand the implications of throwing Poland under the bus on this day is unbelievable. This is just more evidence that he and his staff has no knowledge of history (his lack of knowledge of economics is demonstrated by his domestic policies). People kept saying in 2008 how smart the guy is but I never really bought it, given his completely devoid of reality positions. He really does act like a complete schmuck. I'd like him to explain when throwing your allies under the bus has ever paid off? He has now done so with Israel, Honduras, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Columbia and Georgia are probably next. Remember the last time we had a President like this? It was Carter and he let our staunchest ally in the muslim world, Iran, fall, and turn into our greatest enemy of the last 20 years. Foreign policy mistakes are very hard to undo and can have very long lasting and deadly implications. It's a real tragedy.
Union tyranny with government help
Home-care providers object to union label
Andrea Billups (Contact)
LANSING, Mich. Sherry Loar and Dawn Ives take care of children out of their Petoskey homes so they were surprised to learn that their state-subsidized checks, which cover day care for some low-income families, now have union dues withheld.
Neither has ever voted for or consented to union membership.
"It doesn't seem right," said Ms. Loar, who wrote the governor twice for an explanation - and got none.
"I can't opt out, because I never opted in," she said, adding that she isn't necessarily anti-union.
On Wednesday, the free-market Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, a public-interest law firm at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, filed suit in the Michigan Court of Appeals, claiming the state's Department of Human Services illegally took money from day care providers under a "scheme" to force them into a government employees union.
That new union, Child Care Providers Together Michigan (CCPTM), covers an estimated 40,000 home care providers who look after children whose parents receive state child care assistance funds. By the end of 2009, the union stands to receive about $3.7 million in dues, said Patrick J. Wright, director of the new legal foundation, at a press conference held at the Hall of Justice in Lansing.
He said the home-based day care operators are independent contractors who are being turned into government workers, which violates the law.
"If the state is determined to place these day care workers in a union, it needs an act of the Legislature. ... If Sherry and Dawn are government employees simply because a few of their customers receive government aid, then doctors, landlords and independent grocers can't be far behind," Mr. Wright said.
Ms. Loar and Ms. Ives, according to their complaint, are not employees of the state of Michigan just because they receive payments from DHS. They received notices of the union fees in the mail in January.
Ms. Loar said she was shocked to find out she was forced into something she had no interest in joining. She said she earns about $3,200 a year for taking care of children in her residence and said about $1.50 is now withheld for union dues per month.
"I have one out of 12 that receive assistance, but there are providers that have 12 children, and it's costing them $100 per month," Ms. Loar told reporters.
"This is my home," she said of her workplace. "I think it's wrong for the union to enter my home. It should stop at my door."
Added Ms. Ives of the forced payment: "I think it's absolutely wrong. I wanted to do a job where I am my own boss."
The CCPTM was organized as a joint venture of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
DHS spokesman Colleen Steinman said the agency cannot comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit is the first from the newly formed legal foundation. Mr. Wright, a law graduate from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., said he expects the case of Loar v. DHS to be "a big battle."
The Mackinac Center, which accepts no government money and calls itself nonpartisan, had previously filed numerous amicus briefs on behalf of issues including transparency, labor and the Freedom of Information Act, Mr. Wright said.
Andrea Billups (Contact)
LANSING, Mich. Sherry Loar and Dawn Ives take care of children out of their Petoskey homes so they were surprised to learn that their state-subsidized checks, which cover day care for some low-income families, now have union dues withheld.
Neither has ever voted for or consented to union membership.
"It doesn't seem right," said Ms. Loar, who wrote the governor twice for an explanation - and got none.
"I can't opt out, because I never opted in," she said, adding that she isn't necessarily anti-union.
On Wednesday, the free-market Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, a public-interest law firm at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, filed suit in the Michigan Court of Appeals, claiming the state's Department of Human Services illegally took money from day care providers under a "scheme" to force them into a government employees union.
That new union, Child Care Providers Together Michigan (CCPTM), covers an estimated 40,000 home care providers who look after children whose parents receive state child care assistance funds. By the end of 2009, the union stands to receive about $3.7 million in dues, said Patrick J. Wright, director of the new legal foundation, at a press conference held at the Hall of Justice in Lansing.
He said the home-based day care operators are independent contractors who are being turned into government workers, which violates the law.
"If the state is determined to place these day care workers in a union, it needs an act of the Legislature. ... If Sherry and Dawn are government employees simply because a few of their customers receive government aid, then doctors, landlords and independent grocers can't be far behind," Mr. Wright said.
Ms. Loar and Ms. Ives, according to their complaint, are not employees of the state of Michigan just because they receive payments from DHS. They received notices of the union fees in the mail in January.
Ms. Loar said she was shocked to find out she was forced into something she had no interest in joining. She said she earns about $3,200 a year for taking care of children in her residence and said about $1.50 is now withheld for union dues per month.
"I have one out of 12 that receive assistance, but there are providers that have 12 children, and it's costing them $100 per month," Ms. Loar told reporters.
"This is my home," she said of her workplace. "I think it's wrong for the union to enter my home. It should stop at my door."
Added Ms. Ives of the forced payment: "I think it's absolutely wrong. I wanted to do a job where I am my own boss."
The CCPTM was organized as a joint venture of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
DHS spokesman Colleen Steinman said the agency cannot comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit is the first from the newly formed legal foundation. Mr. Wright, a law graduate from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., said he expects the case of Loar v. DHS to be "a big battle."
The Mackinac Center, which accepts no government money and calls itself nonpartisan, had previously filed numerous amicus briefs on behalf of issues including transparency, labor and the Freedom of Information Act, Mr. Wright said.
Creating a race based America
The goal is Balkanising America. What part of the Constitution says only certain segments of the population deserves legal protection. What part of America says that you should only go to a doctor that looks like you.
Thomas Perez, Illegal Activist and Obama's Civil Rights OfficerJillian BandesWednesday, September 16, 2009
In the wake of the Van Jones resignation, Townhall.com is taking a look at a few other characters in Obama’s closet and what their policies could mean for America. First on the list is Thomas Perez, Obama’s nominee to head the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division.
Perez is one of the last links in the chain for Attorney General Eric Holder, who is revamping the Civil Rights division in the Justice Department after the flood of dismissals and resignations in the division during the Bush administration. At the root of Perez's controversy is partisan disagreement over the politicization of the Department of Justice.
Bush's DoJ prioritized defending those who were wrongfully accused of discrimination as much as they focused on defending minorities who claimed they had suffered from discrimination. This flies in the face of those who believe civil rights laws exist solely to protect minorities, which, as one can imagine, is the modus operandi for Holder’s new Civil Rights division.
Curt Levey at the Committee for Justice explains it this way: “Their feeling is that when it’s used to protect non-minorities is that it's a twisting of the law.”
Obama, Holder, and Perez are keenly focused in on increased enforcement of disparate impact claims – that is, increased meddling of government in business hiring practices, including enforcement of hiring quotas. For example, if an employer makes decisions that result in a lesser percentage of minorities who are hired or promoted – even without that company knowing what the results of those decisions will be ahead of time – that company could be prosecuted.
Perez’s resume is top-notch, but solidly partisan. He is currently a part-time professor at the George Washington School of Public Health and was deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights under Attorney General Janet Reno, two-year director of the office for civil rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and a counsel to the late Senator Edward Kennedy.
Perez is a longtime pro-illegal immigrant activist. He supported the state’s recognition of ID cards issued by Mexico and Guatemala as a valid form of ID for illegal immigrants in the United States, supported the granting of in-state tuition rates to illegals, and provided advice for illegals on how to deal with police. He has advocated for race-conscious admissions to medical school, saying that an increase in minority health care providers is the only way to improve minority health. He believes minorities are better treated by minority health care providers, and that all health care – presumably that practiced by minorities, for minorities – is not just a benefit, but an actual civil right.
The defense of Perez usually comes from those who disliked Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales’ Civil Rights division and are in favor of Holder’s policies and reforms. The Baltimore Sun said Perez's nomination would usher in a DoJ that "can return to its traditional mission of enforcing anti-discrimination laws and protecting the rights of minorities."
Republicans, most notably Sen. Tom Coburn, have employed parliamentary procedures to block Perez’s installation, but unless there’s some serious intervention, Perez is expected to be installed as soon as cloture is invoked.
It's not the kids, it's the curriculum and the goal of the left
75 Percent of Oklahoma High School Students Can't Name the First President of the U.S.Posted:
A majority of Oklahoma high school students could not name Washington as the nation's first president in a recent survey.
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today.
The survey was commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in observance of Constitution Day on Thursday.
Brandon Dutcher is with the conservative think tank and said the group wanted to find out how much civic knowledge Oklahoma high school students know.
The Oklahoma City-based think tank enlisted national research firm, Strategic Vision, to access students' basic civic knowledge.
"They're questions taken from the actual exam that you have to take to become a U.S. citizen," Dutcher said.
A thousand students were given 10 questions drawn from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services item bank. Candidates for U.S. citizenship must answer six questions correctly in order to become citizens.
About 92 percent of the people who take the citizenship test pass on their first try, according to immigration service data. However, Oklahoma students did not fare as well. Only about 3 percent of the students surveyed would have passed the citizenship test.
Dutcher said this is not just a problem in Oklahoma. He said Arizona had similar results, which left him concerned for the entire country.
"Jefferson later said that a nation can't expect to be ignorant and free," Dutcher said. "It points to a real serious problem. We're not going to remain ignorant and free."
Question
% of StudentsWho Answered Correctly
What is the supreme law of the land?
28
What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution?
26
What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
27
How many justices are there on the Supreme Court?
10
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
14
What ocean is on the east coast of the United States?
61
What are the two major political parities in the United States?
43
We elect a U.S. senator for how many years?
11
Who was the first President of the United States?
23
Who is in charge of the executive branch?
29
See the answers to the test
More: Read the Full Report from OCPA
A majority of Oklahoma high school students could not name Washington as the nation's first president in a recent survey.
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today.
The survey was commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in observance of Constitution Day on Thursday.
Brandon Dutcher is with the conservative think tank and said the group wanted to find out how much civic knowledge Oklahoma high school students know.
The Oklahoma City-based think tank enlisted national research firm, Strategic Vision, to access students' basic civic knowledge.
"They're questions taken from the actual exam that you have to take to become a U.S. citizen," Dutcher said.
A thousand students were given 10 questions drawn from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services item bank. Candidates for U.S. citizenship must answer six questions correctly in order to become citizens.
About 92 percent of the people who take the citizenship test pass on their first try, according to immigration service data. However, Oklahoma students did not fare as well. Only about 3 percent of the students surveyed would have passed the citizenship test.
Dutcher said this is not just a problem in Oklahoma. He said Arizona had similar results, which left him concerned for the entire country.
"Jefferson later said that a nation can't expect to be ignorant and free," Dutcher said. "It points to a real serious problem. We're not going to remain ignorant and free."
Question
% of StudentsWho Answered Correctly
What is the supreme law of the land?
28
What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution?
26
What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
27
How many justices are there on the Supreme Court?
10
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
14
What ocean is on the east coast of the United States?
61
What are the two major political parities in the United States?
43
We elect a U.S. senator for how many years?
11
Who was the first President of the United States?
23
Who is in charge of the executive branch?
29
See the answers to the test
More: Read the Full Report from OCPA
Racial Pandering
As Maxine Waters calls for a deeper examination of Teaparty participants racial views (or 'Teabaggers' as she calls them), and Rep. Henry 'Hank' Johnson invokes images of the KKK in comparison to Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst, it's important to remember a little actual racial history in the U.S.. Courtesy of the Real Democrat Party site:
And if Colin Powell had chosen to run in 2000, the Republicans well may have elected the first black President. Given the dismal state of current history education I wonder how many students could identify the party of Abraham Lincoln?
The Democrats:
- Democrats fought to expand slavery while Republicans fought to end it.
- Democrats passed those discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws.
- Democrats supported and passed the Missouri Compromise to protect slavery.
- Democrats supported and passed the Kansas Nebraska Act to expand slavery.
- Democrats supported and backed the Dred Scott Decision.
- Democrats opposed educating blacks and murdered our teachers.
- Democrats fought against anti-lynching laws.
- Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, is well known for having been a “Kleagle” in the Ku Klux Klan.
- Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, personally filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for 14 straight hours to keep it from passage.
- Democrats passed the Repeal Act of 1894 that overturned civil right laws enacted by Republicans.
- Democrats declared that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than vote for a Republican, because the Republican Party was known as the party for blacks.
- Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, reintroduced segregation throughout the federal government immediately upon taking office in 1913.
- Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first appointment to the Supreme Court was a life member of the Ku Klux Klan, Sen. Hugo Black, Democrat of Alabama.
- Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s choice for vice president in 1944 was Harry Truman, who had joined the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas City in 1922.
- Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt resisted Republican efforts to pass a federal law against lynching.
- Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt opposed integration of the armed forces.
- Democrat Senators Sam Ervin, Albert Gore, Sr. and Robert Byrd were the chief opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
- Democrats supported and backed Judge John Ferguson in the case of Plessy v Ferguson.
- Democrats supported the School Board of Topeka Kansas in the case of Brown v The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas.
- Democrat public safety commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, in Birmingham, Ala., unleashed vicious dogs and turned fire hoses on black civil rights demonstrators.
- Democrats were who Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the other protesters were fighting.
- Democrat Georgia Governor Lester Maddox “brandished an ax hammer to prevent blacks from patronizing his restaurant.
- Democrat Governor George Wallace stood in front of the Alabama schoolhouse in 1963, declaring there would be segregation forever.
- Democrat Arkansas Governor Faubus tried to prevent desegregation of Little Rock public schools.
- Democrat Senator John F. Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil rights Act.
- Democrat President John F. Kennedy opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King.
- Democrat President John F. Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI.
- Democrat President Bill Clinton’s mentor was U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright, an Arkansas Democrat and a supporter of racial segregation.
- Democrat President Bill Clinton interned for J. William Fulbright in 1966-67.
- Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright signed the Southern Manifesto opposing the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
- Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright joined with the Dixiecrats in filibustering the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964.
- Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright voted against the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
- Southern Democrats opposed desegregation and integration.
Democrats opposed:
- The Emancipation Proclamation
- The 13th Amendment
- The 14th Amendment
- The 15th Amendment
- The Reconstruction Act of 1867
- The Civil Rights of 1866
- The Enforcement Act of 1870
- The Forced Act of 1871
- The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871
- The Civil Rights Act of 1875
- The Freeman Bureau
- The Civil Rights Act of 1957
- The Civil Rights Act of 1960
- The United State Civil Rights Commission
Republicans gave strong bi-partisan support and sponsorship for the following
legislation:
- The Civil Rights Act of 1964
- The Voting Rights Act of 1965
- The 1968 Civil Rights Acts
- The Equal Opportunity Act of 1972
- Goals and Timetables for Affirmative Action Programs
- Comprehensive Employment Training Act of 1973
- Voting Rights Act of Amendment of 1982
- Civil Rights Act of 1983
- Federal Contract Compliance and Workforce Development Act of 1988
The Republicans:
- Republicans enacted civil rights laws in the 1950’s and 1960’s, over the objection of Democrats.
- Republicans founded the HBCU’s (Historical Black College’s and Universities) and started the NAACP to counter the racist practices of the Democrats.
- Republicans pushed through much of the ground-breaking civil rights legislation in Congress.
- Republicans fought slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom, citizenship and the right to vote.
- Republicans pushed through much of the groundbreaking civil rights legislation from the 1860s through the 1960s.
- Republican President Dwight Eisenhower sent troops into the South to desegregate the schools.
- Republican President Eisenhower appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
- Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois, not Democrat President Lyndon Johnson, was the one who pushed through the civil rights laws of the 1960’s.
- Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois wrote the language for the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
- Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing.
- Republican and black American, A. Phillip Randolph, organized the 1963 March by Dr. King on Washington.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act Roll Call Vote: In the House, only 64 percent of the Democrats (153 yes, 91 no), but 80 percent of the Republicans (136 yes, 35 no), voted for it. In the Senate, while only 68 percent of the Democrats endorsed the bill (46 yes, 21 no), 82 percent of the Republicans voted to enact it (27 yes, 6 no).
Thaddeus Stevens, a Radical Republican that introduced legislation to give African Americans the so-called 40 acres and a mule and Democrats overwhelmingly voted against the bill.
During the Senate debates on the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, it was revealed that members of the Democratic Party formed many terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to murder and intimidate African Americans voters. The Ku Klux Klan Act was a bill introduced by a Republican Congress to stop Klan Activities.
History reveals that Democrats lynched, burned, mutilated and murdered thousands of blacks and completely destroyed entire towns and communities occupied by middle class Blacks, including Rosewood, Florida, the Greenwood District in Tulsa Oklahoma, and Wilmington, North Carolina to name a few.
History reveals that it was Abolitionists and Radical Republicans such as Henry L. Morehouse and General Oliver Howard that started many of the traditional Black colleges, while Democrats fought to keep them closed. Many of our traditional Black colleges are named after white Republicans.
After exclusively giving the Democrats their votes for the past 25 years, the average African American cannot point to one piece of civil rights legislation sponsored solely by the Democratic Party that was specifically designed to eradicate the unique problems that African Americans face today.
As of 2004, the Democrat Party (the oldest political party in America) has never elected a black man to the United States Senate, the Republicans have elected three.
More proof that Democrats/Lefties love royalty
Massachusetts Democrats Still Favor a Kennedy for U.S. Senate
The kind of people who would have liked "Uncle Joe" Stalin. Oh, wait they did like Stalin.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Stewart: "I’m a fake journalist, and I’m embarrassed these guys scooped me,"
Here is Jon Stewart on how the media missed the ACORN story completely.
Racism? Looks like it to me...
Let me add my two cents to Jimmy Carter's race baiting comments.
If you will recall early on in the Clinton administration he tried a similar takeover of the healthcare system known as Hillarycare. It was met by enormous opposition and died an uncomfortable death.
Obamacare is a similar attempt to take over the entire healthcare system and is meeting with similar opposition. So, the policy has a history of opposition. Recent polls show a majority does not want Obamacare.
So, how is Mr. Carter racist? It is because he wants you to go along with a program you don't like because of Obama's race. To oppose his programs therefore becomes a racist act. Got that.
Maureen Dowd, who to use President Obama's words describing Kanye West, is a jackass, said she heard in Joe Wilson's "you lie" remark the word "boy" even though he didn't use it. So, let's go back a little way. When at the Democrat Convention Obama went over to her to tell her he didn't appreciate comments about his ears, she responded we're just trying "to toughen you up, boy". She did use the word "boy" in a deprecating way.
In a like way, Mr. Carter when responding to a question from Jim Lehrer in July 2008 as to the meaning of Barack Obama's possible nomination responded by saying that this "boy" started out with just good parents...
Democrats always accuse others of what they think or would do.
After Healthcare...
Time To Nationalize Grocery Stores
One of the great scandals of our age is the fact that America spends more on food than any other nation. Many political leaders are now calling for urgent reform to bring spending on food under control. While food spending is rapidly increasing and many Americans are overweight, some do not have enough to eat.
Despite this high spending, the United Nations reports that, according to surveys they sent to government officials around the world, the quality of U.S. food is ranked very low. Officials in France report that their food is the best in the world. More insulting is the higher ranking that British experts give their food.
Leaders in Congress now point to what they see as the root of the problem: corporate greed in the form of grocery stores and restaurants operating on a for-profit basis. They promise to replace all private grocery stores with a national system of government commissaries, which purportedly will operate far more efficiently without the administrative overhead required to make a profit. As it will take some time to organize the national network of commissaries, initially groceries will be available only at offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles and U.S. Postal Service, which will provide the models for developing a government commissary system.
Congress and the administration say they will achieve further efficiencies by prohibiting all advertising of food and food products. Consumers will find shopping much easier if personal preference is eliminated in favor of whatever foods government makes available.
To better control costs, the government will invest billions in new electronic food purchasing records. Everything you eat will be reported to the government, which will analyze the data to eliminate wasteful or unhealthy eating. All new food must be approved by a new Comparative Calorie and Taste Administration, which, for example, would eliminate most of the unnecessary brands of potato chips. And as anyone knows, we have far too many brands of beer.
Food is surely a right, as it is necessary for survival. Therefore all groceries available in government commissaries will be free of charge. This will be financed by an increase of 15 percent in income taxes, except for those making over $80,000 a year, whose taxes will be increased by 75 percent. Because the food supply is not unlimited, a fixed amount of ration coupons will be distributed to ensure that each consumer can obtain an equal amount of food.
All private restaurants will be closed, and limited cafeterias will be operated as government commissaries. Congressional liberals point to school lunch programs as a model and the proven results demonstrated by several generations of well-nourished, trim and fit students. Of course, we veterans also remember all of that great military chow.
So far, conservative leaders are at a loss after hearing these proposals. Some of the more courageous conservatives are responding with proposals for mandatory food purchasing. All citizens, including those who go to bed hungry every night, will be required to purchase membership in new Food Management Organizations.
To further control costs, the purchase of certain cuts of meat and imported gourmet foods could require an FMO's advance approval.
Across the political spectrum, there is a developing consensus that the only appropriate response to the fact that some consumers cannot afford groceries is to impose a single government-controlled food system on all citizens. All agree that this is sure to provide the same consistently high performance as public education.
Reportedly, the clincher for those proposing grocery nationalization was stated recently by the White House: "The great thing about these proposals is that if we can somehow get this to work for groceries, we can apply the same idea to health care."
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