Bear To The Right

Postcards from Israel: "WAR IS INEVITABLE"

2011-09-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

War is Inevitable

By Ari Bussel

The number of dead Israelis is mounting, and the war has not even officially begun.

It commenced with a combined attack near Eilat, in Israel’s south, and quickly crept up moving in two directions, one along the seashore in a north-north-westerly direction, the other in a north-north-easterly direction crossing the vast expanse of the Negev.

Qassam Rockets on display

The Gazans realized that firing multiple missiles at once renders Israel’s Iron Dome system less effective. It is able to stop some, but not all the missiles. So a barrage of Grad missiles hit Israeli towns and cities, like the Negev capital, Beer Sheva.

The escalation has been fast and calculated. Israel has been as swift in eliminating the perpetrators of the attack and their direct commanders, but alas there is a never-ending stream of volunteers-to-the-cause behind them. One is destroyed; ten stand to fill his place.

Thirty missiles launched, thousands ready to be launched behind them. No shortage here either.

And this is from one source: Gaza.

The Middle East in 2011 has proven that the impossible and unthinkable happens and keeps surprising us with its appearance, intensity and grandeur. Mubarak, Qaddafi, Assad, Turkey’s ascent, Egypt’s cancellation of the Peace Treaty with Israel. Some are still in the works, but then there is a whole third of the year still ahead of us.

Thus, one must always look at the bigger picture and other players in the region. Those who call themselves “Palestinians” (residents and citizens of Israel, namely Israeli Arabs) have not joined the uprising of their brethren in Gaza yet. Hezbollah has not reared its ugly head, and is extremely coordinated with Hamas in Gaza. Then there are multiple others in this neighborhood, all hostile to Israel and seeking its destruction.

Israelis in the south are feeling the discomfort of living under missile fires, but the rest of Israel, for the moment, is quiet. Not for long.

So what does Israel do? The reaction does not extend beyond those directly responsible. Alas, Israel is mistaken again. Those responsible are not only the launchers and their cohort of bandits. Instead, it is the system as a whole and Hamas, from the snake’s head to the last “freedom fighters”-terrorists. It is the Palestinian Authority. It is Hezbollah and its system of caves and underground bunkers, from its head-rat to the last “Warrior.” It is Syria who has been supplying the military might to Hezbollah, and it is Iran who has been masterminding, supplying, training and orchestrating the events.

What is Israel to do? Should it choose collective punishment or wait, licking its wounds, burying its dead and lamenting some illusion of an elusive peace? Maybe ignore all that is happening against it and focus instead on members of its middle-class losing their standing and becoming destitute?

Luckily at this point in time, Israel will be left with no choice but to retaliate. Israel would not be able to ignore the mounting dead, day after day, and the dozens injured. The disruption of daily life would become unbearable and would creep toward the Center, where all the “beautiful souls” who want peace and think Israel needs to surrender now bask in the joys of life. Life in oblivion will continue until the missiles get to their doorsteps, or actually until they start falling from the skies on their rooftops and gardens, parks and shopping centers, cafes and restaurants.

There will be only one course of action, one that has conveniently been avoided repeatedly. Israel’s air superiority has proven insufficient. Ground action is necessary, as was evident both in the Second War in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and during the land excursion into Gaza in late December 2008 - beginning January 2009.

Israel will have to conquer Gaza, kilometer by kilometer, until the region once again is under full Israeli control. Israel will have to disengage the Gazans from Gaza in a unilateral action to reverse the Disengagement of the summer of 2005.

For those who may mistake Gaza for anything other than what it is, it is an area of approximately 150 square miles (25 x 6). Its residents have vowed to do everything to bring on Israel’s destruction and are acting against civilian centers in Israel. They initiate death and mayhem, the classic definition of inflicting terror.

For them, all courses of action are beneficial: Kill Israelis, it helps. Wound them, not bad. Be killed? It is OK since you are going to heaven for an eternal-life of sex with virgins and enslavement of women. Anyone killed fighting is fine, since it will help hasten Israel’s downfall. They create scenes that the most famous theatrical productions in the world would not be ashamed to host. Israel is then accused of “collective punishment” and “committing atrocities.”

Not enough dead? Inflate the numbers or exhume bodies from graves. That will do just fine.

Whatever they do, there is a carte blanche justification, whereas whatever happens as a result is Israel’s fault. At the end of the day, Israel will be blamed according to the double standard now in effect. The world deliberately ignores the facts and fabricates Goldstone Reports of its own.

Israel’s action must be swift and painful. It must overtake Gaza, destroying everything in its wake if there is even the slightest sign of resistance. Shoot from a mosque, school or hospital, or even from the most revered “UN buildings,” these should be destroyed within moments. Imagine the sights and sounds of the ensuing explosions, with all those missiles and explosives stored there. Guilty of war crimes? The party that uses civilian centers to warehouse elements of war?

There must be refugee camps erected elsewhere, and the population transferred to these camps far away from Gaza. Gaza must no longer exist.

Why? Clearly because Gaza contains the largest stockpile of missiles and other means of warfare in the entire region. Also because Gaza has another side, hidden from above, of underground tunnels creating a city below a city. Lastly, because there are supposedly real refugees who keep squandering the billions they receive from Europe, the UN and elsewhere. Let them be at a real refugee camp and let Israel take care of them.

Israel may have to foot the bill in the short term, but it can keep a tab and present it to all those concerned. Besides, treating the “refugee” problem once and for all will be much cheaper than perpetuating the idea of “eternal refugees.”

Gaza must be no more. It wants war, not peace, so it must be prepared for the fulfillment of its craving. If it wants to die, Israel must ensure that terror dies with it. All the “innocent” Gazans can be transferred. They never wanted to be in Gaza in the first place. They want Jaffe and Acre, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

In fact, as a first step, they should be moved to Judea and Samaria. In newly erected tent cities there will be schools where math and foreign languages, literature and science are taught, not how to become a martyr or a terrorist. Schools where childhood blossoms rather than destroyed. Schools where hatred is eradicated and love and respect taught.

At one point there will be peace, but for peace to exist, there must be no Gaza. Gaza at the moment is the power base of evil, the embodiment of Israel’s failure to deal with a situation and the clear upper hand of Hamas.

Hamas calls things by name. It is time that it is fed some of its own medicine.

Some may say that this will lead to Israel losing its support base with American Jews and others throughout the world. To them I say, American Jewry long ago deserted the Jewish State, and the world will condemn Israel no matter what she does. So she must act. It is better to be alive and accused than dead and maligned.

Gary Aminoff Comments On the Middle East on BlogTalk Radio

2011-03-26T13:19:00.000-07:00

I was invited on to a radio show on BlogTalk Radio to discuss middle east policy. It was a good discussion about our government's foreign policy in the middle east and the ramifications of what is taking place right now, and its long-term effects.

It is a one-hour show. You can listen here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/undergroundpoets/2011/03/26/will-and-mike-back-to-basics

Dennis Prager: The Other Tsunami

2011-03-26T13:08:00.000-07:00

Dennis Prager, writing in Townhall Magazine, commented, just after the tsunami hit Japan, about the other tsunami - the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim flood of Jew-hatred.

Excerpt:

Palestinian and other Muslim spokesmen and their supporters on the left argue that this unique hatred is the fruit of Israeli policies, not decades of Nazi-like Jew-hatred saturating Islamic education, television, radio and the mosque. But for this to be true, unique hatred would have to be matched by unique evil on the Israelis' part.

Yet, among the injustices of the world, what the Israelis have done to the Palestinians would not even register on a moral Richter scale. The creation of Israel engendered about 750,000 Palestinian refugees (and an equal number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries) and the death of perhaps 10 thousand Palestinian Arabs. And all of that came about solely because Arab armies invaded Israel in order to destroy it at birth. Yet, when Pakistan was yanked from India and established as a Muslim state at the very same time Israel was established, that act engendered 12.5 million Muslim refugees and about a million dead Muslims (and similar numbers of Hindu refugees and deaths). Why then doesn't "Hindu" equal "Jew" in the Muslim lexicon of hate?

Here are some answers in brief:

First, many groups have been hated, but none have been hated as deeply as the Jews.

Second, Jew-hatred is often exterminationist, which is why Jew-hatred has little in common with ethnic bigotry, religious intolerance or even racism. Rarely, if ever, do any of them seek the extermination of the disliked or hated group.

Third, exterminationist Jew-haters are particularly dangerous people. Non-Jews who do not recognize Jew-hatred as the moral cancer it is are fools. Nazism was born in Jew-hatred and led to the death of more than 40 million non-Jews. Islamic terror started against Israeli Jews but has spread around the world. More fellow Muslims have now been murdered by Islamic terror than Jews have.

Read the whole article.

No Wonder Hillary Resigned. Mr. Burns Explains U.S. Middle East Policy.

2011-03-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

By Barry Rubin
http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/03/no-wonder-hillary-resigned-mr-burns.html

For a comprehensive statement of current U.S. Middle East policy you can’t do better than the testimony of Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William J. Burns at the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on March 17, 2011.

It’s horrifying. Here's my summary of the key point:

The United States will press for political reform and urge governments to talk to the opposition in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia.
The United States will NOT press for political reform or urge governments to talk to the opposition in the Gaza Strip, Iran, Lebanon, Sudan, and Syria.

What do the governments in the first paragraph have in common? They have been friendly to the United States.

What do the governments in the second paragraph have in common? They are currently unfriendly to the United States.

In other words, the policy is to pressure your friends (they become weaker); engage your enemies (they become stronger). It is the exact opposite of what U.S. policy should be at this time.

There is a carefully thought out rationale for this policy. It is this:

If relatively moderate countries open their political process (even if it gives Islamists a chance to take power), they will become stronger and less likely to have radical revolutions. Their success will then show that the radical regimes have failed and everyone will see democracy works better. So the radicals will all decide to become moderate or be overthrown by their own people.

The above paragraph is not a joke or satire. This idea is very clearly expressed in the testimony and in other administration statements. This is a historical theme in U.S. foreign policy.

For example, this was precisely the idea regarding the Palestinians. The United States and others would pour money into the West Bank, making the Palestinian Authority a success. Meanwhile, Gaza would sink into stagnation and the people there would want to have a good life, like those on the West Bank.

Of course, the Obama Administration then pressed Israel to drop the sanctions and pumped money (indirectly) into the Gaza Strip.

What else is wrong with this policy? A lot, but briefly:

--It ignores the fact that radical dictators will kill people to stay in power.

--Reform can do more to weaken regimes than the subversion of radical oppositionists.

--Ideology is a powerful factor sometimes transcending material well-being.

--The radicals think they're winning so why should they change? The moderates think they're losing and are more likely to change sides or appease the radicals.

--Radical nationalists or Islamists can use the opening in politics to win power and then transform the state into an aggressive, anti-American country. To some extent, this is what happened in Iran.

A more realistic U.S. government would have put some tough language into Burns' testimony to cover itself by saying, for example, that it would back the democratic opposition in Iran. But the Obama administration is so ideologically blinded and has been given such a free pass by the mass media that it doesn't realize how obviously far-out it behaves.

In giving this testimony--and this is only my opinion--Burns must have been the most horrified person in the Senate hearing room. After all, not only is he the highest-ranking career person in the State Department, he’s also a veteran of three decades of policymaking on the Middle East.

Much of what he said—expressing U.S. (i.e., White House) policy runs directly counter to everything he’s believed, advocated, and implemented in his career. Let’s go through it in detail, keeping in mind that Burns is just President Barack Obama's messenger here.

His testimony expresses wild enthusiasm for recent Arab political upheavals. There’s no hint about throwing out a 32-year-old alliance with Egypt's regime. Nor is there any whisper of an Islamist threat (no mention of Islamism or of the Muslim Brotherhood), or of an Iranian strategic threat (except for a phrase at the very end), much less from the radicalism of the Syrian regime, Hamas, and Hizballah. There’s no mention of Turkey’s change of sides or of any strategic problems whatsoever.

In a competent administration, if only to cover itself, the testimony would have included real warnings; reservations; strategic considerations; concerns over protecting U.S. interests, stress on the need to maintain U.S. leadership and credibility; and the importance of helping allies protect themselves.

Instead we get this community organizer-style rhetoric:

“The revolutions…are about the brave, proud, and determined people of Arab societies, intent upon better governance and more economic opportunities, intent upon erasing the disconnect between the rulers and the ruled that for so long has been so stifling for so many. And they’re about the universal values that the President spoke about two years ago in Cairo--the right of peaceful assembly, freedom of speech, and the right to determine one’s own destiny....”

“It is a moment of great possibility for American policy and help; a moment when the peaceful, homegrown, non-ideological movement surging out of Tahrir Square offers a powerful repudiation of al-Qaida’s false narrative that violence and extremism are the only ways to effect change.”

Here we see another administration theme: America's only enemy is a tiny group called al-Qaida. America's enemy is not revolutionary Islamism, which already controls entire countries and animates movements that mobilize millions of people.

Strange, but neither al-Qaida nor any other radical Islamist force (Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, the Taliban, the Iraqi insurgents, or the Muslim Brotherhoods, as well as al-Qaida) seem the least bit worried about these upheavals. Perhaps the Obama Administration's naive ideologues understand these things better than those who actually are Muslims, Arabs, speak the languages, and live in the Middle East.

Here is about all the lip service Burns' testimony gives to the risks of Obama policy:

“But it is also a moment of considerable risk, because there is nothing automatic or foreordained about the success of such transitions. Helping to get them right is as important a challenge for American foreign policy as any we have faced since the end of the Cold War.”

"Helping to get them right!" Aside from being ungrammatical, do you think the Obama Administration is going to be able to help make Egypt into a moderate, stable, wealthy, happy, democratic state?

But there's more. The administration's policy then goes on to discredit the “war on terrorism” and battle with Islamism:

“The long-held conceit of many Arab leaders was that there were really only two political choices--the autocrats you know or the Islamic extremists you fear. That provided a convenient rationale for blocking real political outlets or broadened participation, and it ultimately produced the spontaneous combustion of Tahrir Square.”

But doesn’t that remain to be seen? That "spontaneous" combustion including a lot of anti-American far leftists and Muslim Brotherhood cadre. Those Arab leaders haven't yet been proven wrong.

Imagine for the moment that you are a Saudi or Jordanian leader reading this. What would you say to the Obama Administration?:

You think the “Islamic extremists” are a mirage? You think Iran and its power is a conceit? Have you seen how many people were killed in Algeria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan in such internal conflicts? They want to kill us as well. You Americans are idiots! Why should we pay attention to you?

Burns continues with phrases like “remarkable sense of public empowerment” and “a communications revolution that stripped governments of their old monopoly on the flow of information, made people more aware of what others had in other societies that they didn’t, and helped them mobilize without central leadership or conventional political organizations.”

Let’s be frank here: the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt succeeded for one reason ultimately—that the armies supported them. They failed in Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and elsewhere because the security forces supported the regime. Let’s not get carried away with “public empowerment” and Facebook as the twenty-first century equivalent of Mao Zedong's Little Red Book!

Burns continues with a lecture on political theory:

“Political systems and leaderships that fail to respond to the legitimate aspirations of their people become more brittle, not more stable. Popular pressures to realize universal values will take different shapes in different societies, but no society is immune from them. Political systems are a little like bicycles--unless they’re peddled forward, they tend to fall over.”

You see, weakening a friendly regime is always good! Change is always good! The people always want to realize "universal values" and merely do so in different ways (terrorism perhaps?).

Nobody could possibly be a radical nationalist, an Islamist, a militant anti-American or antisemite. They all want what Americans want. And unless you give the masses what they want, you fall from power, so you better give them what they want. It's just a matter of negotiating the surrender terms.

There's no way that Burns could really believe this stuff after three decades' work on the Middle East.

He even calls this maxim an “inconvenient truth,” a reference to former Vice-President Al Gore’s global warming film.
Yet despite Burns’ expression of guilt that past U.S. policy failed to recognize this building explosion of reformism and rebellion, the actual history of that policy shows something different. I participated in discussions with U.S. policymakers starting in the 1980s about the new generation, demographic shift, failure of Arab regimes, and other such factors. They weren’t so ignorant at all but understood the dangers involved, too.

Most obviously, there were attempts by President George W. Bush’s administration to push reform. But the current administration can’t say anything nice about its predecessor. And what about President Jimmy Carter’s push on democracy and human rights, including pressure on Iran's shah to do precisely what the administration wants Arab leaders to do now? Oops. Better not mention that precedent or president.

But there’s more kumbaya babble instead of national interests’ diplomacy here. Burns says:

“It is in our long-term interest to support the emergence of more transparent and more responsive governments, who will ultimately make stronger and more stable partners….”

While he admits that “the short-term is likely to be pretty complicated and unsettling” Burns is basically saying that nothing can go wrong.

He refers to “a danger of authoritarian retrenchment….” In other words, the region can go “back” to a Mubarak-style regime. But how about change leading to a brand new type of totalitarianism like what happened in Iran?

Remember, no administration official can say the word "Islamism." So instead Burns refers to how “predatory extremists” might take advantage of the situation, as if these are burglars rather than movements with an attractive ideology and mass base far stronger than the Facebook crowd.

Burns names “economic stagnation” and failure to improve people’s lives as factors which might help these unnamed extremists take over. Burns then makes solving these problems sound easy. “We can help produce private sector jobs desperately needed to keep pace with demography and expectations.” Really? They can’t even do that in America!

It's all very well to say that an “independent media to hold people accountable” is absolutely necessary. But the media is likely to be highly partisan and often controlled by radicals.

Here's my favorite sentence:

"Popularly elected governments sometimes taking sharper issue with American policies than their autocratic predecessors did, and elections sometimes producing uncomfortable results.”

You mean like Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hizballah in Lebanon? Might the “uncomfortable results” include throwing out U.S. bases, sponsoring terrorism, starting wars, promoting hysterical anti-Americanism, little things like that?

Yet what is most shocking of all in the new American policy is the failure even to mention support for democratic movements against the governments of Iran and Syria. Democratic reform is presented as managing the collapse of America's Arab friends rather than an American asset to use against those who are both its enemies and the enemies of freedom.

How can the U.S. government make promoting democracy its main priority without even mentioning the idea of vigorously promoting democracy in Iran or Syria or supporting the oppositions in those countries? Why does the Obama Administration engage its enemies (Syria, Hizballah, and even the Taliban) and enrage its friends?

This is a policy that supports "serious political reform" and dialogue with the opposition only in countries friendly to the United States! Have they thought about what this means: Jordan's government being pushed into a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Authority pressed to set up a coalition with Hamas?

Only at the very end of Burns' testimony, briefly and as an afterthought, comes the stuff that used to be U.S. Middle East policy before the triumph of Facebook democracy:

“Regional security: strengthening ties to the GCC states; in fighting terrorism; in preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons and setting off a catastrophic regional arms race; in not losing sight of Iraq’s own crucial democratic transition and reintegration into the Arab world.”

Oh yes, almost forgot about that obsolete stuff.Is Burns' statement the best America--the best even Obama--can do as the Middle East burns?

Perhaps Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to resign after reading Burns’ draft testimony. I sure would have done so if I were her.
_____________________

Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His books include Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics and The Muslim Brotherhood (Palgrave-Macmillan); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, a study of Arab reform movements (Wiley).

John Stossel: I Can Balance The Budget

2011-02-05T23:03:00.000-08:00

By John Stossel

The Congressional Budget Office says the current year's budget deficit will be a record $1.5 trillion. It also says that over the next decade we're on track for annual deficits of "only" $768 billion. I suspect the CBO has hired Rosy Scenario to do the bookkeeping, but let's take that number at face value.

I'm now going to balance the budget, with the help of some experts.

I'll begin with things I'm most eager to cut. Let's privatize air traffic control. Canada did it, and it works better. Then privatize Amtrak. Get rid of all subsidies for rail. That'll save $12 billion.

End subsidies for public broadcasting, like NPR. Cancel the Small Business Administration. Repeal the Davis-Bacon rules under which the government pays union-set wages to workers on federal construction projects. Cut foreign aid by half (although we should probably get rid of all of it). So far, that's $20 billion.
Oops. That doesn't dent the deficit. We have to do much more.

So eliminate the U.S. Education Department. We'd save $94 billion. Federal involvement doesn't improve education. It gets in the way.

Agriculture subsidies cost us $30 billion a year. Let's get rid of them. They distort the economy. We should also eliminate Housing and Urban Development. That's $53 billion more.

Who needs the Energy Department and its $20 billion sinkhole? The free market should determine energy investments.

And let's end the war on drugs. In effect, it's a $47 billion subsidy for thugs in the black market.

I've already cut more than six times more than President Obama proposed in his State of the Union address. His freeze of nondefense discretionary spending would save only $40 billion.

But my cuts still total only $246 billion. If we're going to get rid of the rest of the CBO's projected deficit, we must attack the "untouchable" parts of the budget, starting with Social Security. Raising the retirement age and indexing benefits to inflation would save $93 billion. I'd save more by privatizing Social Security, but our progressive friends won't like that, so for now I'll ignore privatization.

The biggest budget busters are Medicare and Medicaid, and get this: the 400 subsidy programs run by HHS. Assuming I take just two-thirds of the Cato Institute's suggested cuts, that saves $281 billion.

How about the Defense Department's $721 billion? Much of that money could be saved if the administration just shrank the military's mission to its most important role: protecting us and our borders from those who wish us harm. Today, we have more than 50,000 soldiers in Germany, 30,000 in Japan and 9,000 in Britain. Those countries should pay for their own defense. Cato's military cuts add up to $150 billion.

I've now cut enough to put us $2 billion in surplus!

Can we go further?

"Repeal Obamacare," syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock said.
Reason magazine editor Matt Welch wants to cut the Department of Homeland Security, "something that we did without 10 years ago."

But don't we need Homeland Security to keep us safe?

"We already have law enforcement in this country that pays attention to these things. This is a heavily bureaucratized organization.

"Cut the Commerce Department," Mary O'Grady of The Wall Street Journal said. "If you take out the census work that it does, you would save $8 billion. And the rest of what it does is really just collect money for the president from business."

As the bureaucrats complain about proposals to make tiny cuts, it's good to remember that disciplined government could make cuts that get us to a surplus in one year. But even a timid Congress could make swift progress if it wanted to. If it just froze spending at today's levels, it would almost balance the budget by 2017. If spending were limited to 1 percent growth each year, the budget would balanced in 2019. And if the crowd in Washington would limit spending growth to about 2 percent a year, the red ink would almost disappear in 10 years.

As you see, the budget can be cut. Only politics stand in the way.

John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of "Give Me a Break" and of "Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity." To find out more about John Stossel, visit his site at johnstossel.com.

Israel Never Looked So Good

2011-02-05T19:46:00.000-08:00

By David Suissa, Jewish Journal

They all warned us. The geniuses at Peace Now. The brilliant diplomats. The think tanks. Even the Arab dictators warned us. For decades now, they have been warning us that if you want “peace in the Middle East,” just fix the Palestinian problem. A recent variation on this theme has been: Just get the Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to “freeze” their construction, and then, finally, Palestinian leaders might come to the table and peace might break out.

And what would happen if peace would break out between Jews and Palestinians? Would all those furious Arabs now demonstrating on the streets of Cairo and across the Middle East feel any better? Would they feel less oppressed? What bloody nonsense.

Has there ever been a greater abuse of the English language in international diplomacy than calling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the “Middle East peace process?” As if there were only two countries in the Middle East.

Even if you absolutely believe in the imperative of creating a Palestinian state, you can’t tell me that the single-minded and global obsession with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the expense of the enormous ills in the rest of the Middle East hasn’t been idiotic, if not criminally negligent.

While tens of millions of Arabs have been suffering for decades from brutal oppression, while gays have been tortured and writers jailed and women humiliated and dissidents killed, the world — yes, the world — has obsessed with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As if Palestinians — the same coddled victims on whom the world has spent billions and who have rejected one peace offer after another — were the only victims in the Middle East.

As if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has anything to do with the 1,000-year-old bloody conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, or the desire of brutal Arab dictators to stay in power, or the desire of Islamist radicals to bring back the Caliphate, or the economic despair of millions, or simply the absence of free speech or basic human rights throughout the Arab world.

While self-righteous Israel bashers have scrutinized every flaw in Israel’s democracy — some waxing hysterical that the Jewish democratic experiment in the world’s nastiest neighborhood has turned into an embarrassment — they kept their big mouths shut about the oppression of millions of Arabs throughout the Middle East.

They cried foul if Israeli Arabs — who have infinitely more rights and freedoms than any Arabs in the Middle East — had their rights compromised in any way. But if a poet was jailed in Jordan or a gay man was tortured in Egypt or a woman was stoned in Syria, all we heard was screaming silence.

Think of the ridiculous amount of media ink and diplomatic attention that has been poured onto the Israel-Palestinian conflict over the years, while much of the Arab world was suffering and smoldering, and tell me this is not criminal negligence. Do you ever recall seeing a U.N. resolution or an international conference in support of Middle Eastern Arabs not named Palestinians?

Of course, now that the Arab volcano has finally erupted, all those chronic Israel bashers have suddenly discovered a new cause: Freedom for the poor oppressed Arabs of the Middle East!

Imagine if those Israel-bashers, during all the years they put Israel under their critical and hypocritical microscope, had taken Israel’s imperfect democratic experiment and said to the Arab world:Why don’t you try to emulate the Jews? Why don’t you give equal rights to your women and gays, just like Israel does? Why don’t you give your people the same freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom to vote that Israel gives its people? And offer them the economic opportunities they would get in Israel? Why don’t you treat your Jewish citizens the same way Israel treats its Arab citizens?

Why don’t you study how Israel has struggled to balance religion with democracy — a very difficult but not insurmountable task?

Why don’t you teach your people that Jews are not the sons of dogs, but a noble, ancient people with a 3,000-year connection to the land of Israel?

Yes, imagine if Israel bashers had spent a fraction of their energy fighting the lies of Arab dictators and defending the rights of millions of oppressed Arabs. Imagine if President Obama had taken 1 percent of the time he has harped on Jewish settlements to defend the democratic rights of Egyptian Arabs — which he is suddenly doing now that the volcano has erupted.

Maybe it’s just easier to beat up on a free and open society like Israel. Well, now that the cesspool of human oppression in the Arab world has been opened for all to see, how bad is Israel’s democracy looking? Don’t you wish the Arab world had a modicum of Israel’s civil society? And that it was as stable and reliable and free and open as Israel?

You can preach to me all you want about the great Jewish tradition of self-criticism — which I believe in — but right now, when I see poor Arab souls being killed for protesting on the street, and the looming threat that one Egyptian Pharaoh may be replaced by an even more oppressive one, I’ve never felt more proud of being a supporter of the Jewish state.

David Suissa is the founder of OLAM magazine and OLAM.org. You can read his daily blog at suissablog.com and e-mail him at suissa@olam.org.

Forfeiting Liberty

2010-11-21T09:33:00.000-08:00

Who would have believed that American citizens would voluntarily subject themselves to one of two offensive options in order to board an airplane:

a) Be electronically strip-searched and exposed to risky radiation, or

b) Have your body, including your genitals, felt by a government employee?

If you are not willing to be subjected to potentially dangerous doses of radiation and having your body, in all of its glory, presented to some stranger watching a screen, or you are not willing to be sexually assaulted, you cannot board an airplane in the United States.

We have not only reached the height of absurdity, but we have gradually surrendered our sense of who we are, and our liberty, to an over-reaching government that has no compunction about violating the Bill of Rights, and our Constitution.

Let me begin this discussion by saying that it is very clear that neither full body display scans nor some government employee feeling your body is going to prevent a determined terrorist from getting explosives on board a plane. This whole exercise by Janet Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security is designed to make everyone feel like the government is doing something to protect its citizens, when, in fact, it is not.

Instead of looking for potential weapons the proper procedure would be to look for potential terrorists.

Frightening a three year old child or doing a body pat-down of a nun is not doing anything to protect American citizens, it is, instead, showing the power of the government to control your life and subject you to humiliation and to being demeaned. Subjecting American citizens to what would be sexual assault if it were done by anyone other than a government employee is the beginning of a police state.

The absurdity of forcing pilots - pilots, who fly our planes, to be subjected to this intrusive scrutiny shows the complete lack of common sense being used by our government. Israel, for example, doesn't even use metal detectors at their terminals. They know that metal detectors, body scanners or body feels will not prevent terrorist activity.

Israel profiles potential terrorists. They know who is likely to be a potential terrorist. That does not include pilots, children or nuns. If you fit the profile of a potential terrorist, you are called into an office and you have a conversation with a security representative of El Al Airlines. They are very adept at figuring out who is a likely threat. They have never had a terrorist incident.

We need some common sense. The DHC should be identifying who potential terrorists may be, and putting them through intense scrutiny, and not subjecting the rest of American citizens to this process.

The fact is that potential terrorists are most likely men who are Muslim jihadists, and perhaps Muslim women, who want to do harm to those of us in the West who are not Muslim. The irony of this whole absurdity is that Muslim women and some Muslim men will be exempted from either a pat-down or the full body scan. Seriously?

But the worst thing about this process is what we, as citizens, are willing to accept in this country which was founded on the basis of Liberty.

Daniel Greenfield explains that we have developed a "siege" mentality.

To understand what that is, we first need to understand why things are the way they are. Security measures at airports are a defensive measure. And a society on the defense develops a siege mentality. In a society under siege, civil rights quickly go by the wayside. The longer the siege goes on, the more rights vanish, never to be recovered again, as people adopt the siege mentality. "If you don't want to die, then just cooperate with the authorities", is the byword of the siege mentality.

There is a very simple reason why we need airline security. Because we have Muslims living in the United States, and traveling to the United States. Unlike the old leftist terrorists, Muslim terrorists like to kill everyone on board and use the planes as weapons too. That makes the consequences of allowing them to succeed completely unacceptable. But we have spent so much time talking about the consequences, that we refuse to admit what the problem is.

American authorities refuse to admit there is any specific group that is responsible for terrorist acts. So, in place of that we treat everyone as if they were terrorists.

Greenfield states it accurately.

America is caught in a War of Terror with no end in sight, because we won't admit who the enemy is. Instead we engage in appeasement. We keep reaching out to all the world's Muslims, hoping to convince them to stop trying to kill us. We humiliate our own citizens. We learn to be afraid of our aircraft. Boarding a plane becomes a suicide pact, as we accept that the air force will shoot us down, if we are hijacked. And as time goes on, it will only get worse. We have still not even begun to learn the real meaning of terror.

The basic problem comes down to this. We have failed to put Islam on the defensive. We did briefly after 9/11, but no more. Today and for the last ten years, we have been on the defensive. Islam has been on the offensive. If we want our lives back. If we want our countries back. And if we want to fly without fear, then we have to change that. We have to put Muslims on the defensive. Or go on living under siege.

We are willing to allow ourselves to be abused, and subjected to unreasonable searches because we feel we are under siege, and that the government knows best. Did we forget that our founders created a Bill of Rights that gives us the right to prevent our government from taking such action?

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died in the cause of defending our liberty. Are we willing to simply forfeit that liberty?

Benjamin Franklin once said that those who are willing to trade liberty for security deserve neither. They'll also get neither.

* * *

Cross-posted at Modern Conservative

Milton Friedman on Minimum Wage

2010-11-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

Milton Friedman explains why minimum wage laws hurt the very people that they are supposed to help.

For more on the minimum wage and how it causes unemployment and hurts poor people, see my previous post, "The Minimum Wage Hurts Poor People"

Video of Ayn Rand on Collectivism and Socialism

2010-11-11T00:31:00.000-08:00

In this interview of Ayn Rand by Mike Wallace in 1958, Ayn Rand describes how elected leaders should have limited powers. She handles tough questions from Mike Wallace who consistently tries to trip her up or make her look silly. It is an amazing interview. Fifty years ago Ayn Rand predicted what would happen to the US economically if we continued to follow the trend toward collectivism and socialism.

I highly recommend you spend the 9 minutes to watch this important video. Rand says Americans have never been given the choice between freedom and collectivism.

This is an excerpt from a 1958 interview of Ayn Rand on the Mike Wallace Show. Ayn Rand was a child during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia before visiting America and staying.

Ayn Rand has a brilliant mind and fought against communist philosophy present in America in the 1930's - 1950's particularly. Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged, speaks of how collectivism will destroy America's free enterprise economic system. Ayn believes we should not be allowed to vote on EVERY issue.

She disdains government forced coercion in any name, even social inequalities. Some 50 years later we can see the devastation caused by social welfare programs that she warned against. Ayn Rand was a staunch defender of capitalism and attributed ALL economic problems to government meddling. Ayn says we Americans have not been given a choice between freedom and collectivism as both political parties both subscribe to socialism tenets. She says government "regulations are creating robber-barons" and that "capitalists with government help is the worst of all economic phenomenon".

God Bless our Veterans

2010-11-10T23:37:00.000-08:00

A profound THANK YOU to all who served or are currently serving in the United States military – from the American Continental Army of yesteryear to today’s Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, Army, and Coast Guard.

May we never forget… God bless our veterans.

The Middle East Situation Simplified

2010-11-09T00:18:00.000-08:00

Not sure about the problems in the Middle East? Not sure who the "bad guys" are, Israel or the Palestinians? Don't understand why there isn't peace yet? Can't figure out why the Israelis and the Palestinians can't reach an agreement?

Dennis explains it in 6 minutes.

Watching!

2010-11-09T00:03:00.000-08:00

The GOP Gets A Second Chance

2010-11-07T11:05:00.000-08:00

Great article by Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe:

THE MOST encouraging thing about the Republican triumph in last week's midterm elections is that so many Republicans acknowledge that it wasn't a Republican triumph.

"We make a great mistake if we believe that tonight these results are somehow an embrace of the Republican Party," Florida's impressive senator-elect, Marco Rubio, said in his victory speech Tuesday night. "What they are is a second chance, a second chance for Republicans to be what they said they were going to be not so long ago."

The same sentiment was expressed by the likely next House majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia. "There isn't a lot of confidence focused on the Republicans yet," he told CBS the morning after the election. "It isn't necessarily a vote of confidence for Republican leadership."

Outside Congress, too, influential Republican strategists have been warning the victors against hubris and the temptation to gloat. "Republicans must not delude themselves," wrote political mastermind Karl Rove. "The voters didn't throw out the Democrats because they are enraptured with the GOP. . . . Republicans are on probation."

So they are. Voters have been betrayed in the past by Republicans who ran for office vowing to shrink the scope and cost and intrusiveness of government, only to end up presiding over ever-more-bloated budgets, record-setting deficits, increasingly unaffordable entitlements, and disgraceful ethical lapses.

The last time a GOP majority took control of the US House of Representatives -- under Newt Gingrich in January 1995 -- Republicans produced a list of more than 300 unnecessary federal agencies, funds, and programs that they intended to "zero out" as proof of their fiscal responsibility. Yet nearly every item on that list was still alive and well when the Republicans lost their majority 12 years later. By then the GOP had grown as addicted to pork-barrel spending and the perks of power as the Democrats they had campaigned against. In Cantor's words, Republicans had become "a party on the Bridge to Nowhere" -- a biting reference to the proposed Alaska bridge that became a national symbol of earmark sleaze and irresponsible pork-barrel politics.

Florida Senator-elect Marco Rubio on Election Night: "We make a great mistake if we believe that tonight these results are somehow an embrace of the Republican Party."

The tidal wave that swept so many Democrats out to sea last week was a repudiation of the extremely liberal Obama-Pelosi agenda of the past two years -- the tax increases, the massive health-care overhaul, the trillion-dollar deficits, the regulatory explosion, and the condescending, we-know-best disdain for anyone who opposed them. As the lesser of two evils, Republicans ended up the big winners on Election Day. But they will not regain the trust they squandered the last time around without proving that they deserve it.

Indeed, according to a Rasmussen survey conducted last week, 59 percent of voters say it's likely -- 38 percent say very likely -- that Americans "will be disappointed with Republicans in Congress before the next national elections."

Intelligent Republicans know this only too well, which is why their historic gains on Nov. 2 triggered so little jubilation. "This is not a time for celebration," said John Boehner, who will become Speaker of the House when the 112^th Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.

What is it time for, then? First and foremost, it is time to reverse the destructive Obama policies that have alarmed so many voters and made businesses so uneasy. It is essential that Republicans keep tax rates from rising. They must roll back spending decisively. And they must dismantle as much of the misbegotten health-care law as a party in control of just one house of Congress can.

They must also make it clear that they have learned from the failure of the previous GOP majority. That means permanently ending the pork-and-earmark culture that has so corrupted the budgeting process. It means defunding, not perpetuating, the corporate welfare and agriculture subsidies that violate every free-market principle Republicans claim to stand for. It means keeping their promise that no legislation will be voted on until members have had sufficient time to read and understand it. It means an end to automatic congressional pay raises, which are both obnoxious and a violation of the 28^th Amendment.

Power tends to corrupt, Lord Acton said. It certainly corrupted the last Republican majority, which got hooked on the pleasures of authority and came to resemble the corrupt Democratic majority it had replaced. Now Republicans are being given another opportunity to govern. Let's hope this time they stay true to their values.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).

God as Government

2010-11-07T10:55:00.000-08:00

Daniel Greenfield, over at Sultan Knish, wrote a brilliant article titled, "God as Government."

.... If there are no unique revelations, no special scriptures and no vital testaments... then each religion's identity becomes a formality, is reduced to a series of dubious traditions that don't really matter in the bigger picture. If all religions are equally valid, then they are also equally invalid....

Greenfield postulates, correctly, in my view, that when you remove God from religion, you get the worship of "Government."

In the absence of theology, the only religion that remains is the universal one of "being nice to other people". Take god out of the equation, and all you have left is social justice. Liberalization leads to secularization with the end result that religion becomes one gigantic "being nice to other people" project. And what is the best possible vehicle for social justice projects, but government. And so governments became gods. Their mission to build kingdoms of heaven on earth, utopias in which no one went hungry and which everyone was equally prosperous.

This is an excellent essay. Please go here and read it.

One more tidbit:

An impossible mission demands symbolic figures, leaders who transcend the political and ascend to the mystical. Who are somehow inhumanly inspirational, able to elevate their followers to a new state of being. Messiahs, so to speak. Leader-worship underlies the impossible mission. With faith in our leaders we can succeed.

Faith is required because the mission is inherently impossible. Only by believing in the latest Camelot in the latest "Communism-Over-the-Hill", can people suspend their disbelief, committing themselves to the thrill of Hope and Change, to "Yes We Can" and "We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For." The ecstasy is religious or rather pseudo-religious. It is government masquerading as god, anointing messiahs and trying to hide policy flaws under the veil of charisma.

Greenfield always has great insights. Follow his blog.

California Results: This is not Defeat!

2010-11-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

We were naturally discouraged at the poor showing of our California Republican candidates this election. For your information the registration numbers in Los Angeles County at the time of the election are:

Democrats     2,260,449    51%
Republicans   1,048,609     24%
D-T-S             911,394     21%
Other parties    215,556      4%
Total           4,436,008

Democrats outnumber us by better than 2 to 1 in this County.

Statewide, the numbers are:

Democrats       7,615,452    44%
Republicans      5,353,264    31%
D-T-S 3,505,527    20%
Other parties      811,640      5%
Total              17,285,883

This is only one battle in a long war.

Keep in mind that George Washington lost every battle he fought until the Battle of Trenton. It would have been very understanding if he and the revolutionary troops had given up. But despite losing every battle, many soldiers lost in battle, and huge numbers of desertions, Washington kept going until he succeeded. We need to emulate that.

Redistricting will help in 2012. We have to increase Republican registration, which we have found is not easy to do, but we must figure out how to do it. We also have to convince Democrats that our policies work because we can't win with Republicans only in California.

Jerry Brown, the Democrat legislature, the passage of the proposition where Democrats alone can now pass a budget will likely put California into a fiscal bind we will not be able to easily get out of. I am not wishing for that, by the way, just the opposite. I am just saying that is a likely outcome. That may give us an opportunity in 2012 to come up with a plan to fix the state that will resound with non-Republican voters.

Big government, spending beyond our means, trying to take care of everyone who needs it, supporting the public service employee pension plans, putting unrealistic restraints and higher taxes on businesses, raising utility rates to pay for AB 32, growing the state government are all programs that are unsustainable.

We need to field a good group of California candidates very soon who will be prepared to do what they have to do to win in 2012.

The national scene was much rosier. We have taken back the House with a substantial number of seats (possibly 65).

We will be in a position to stop Mr. Obama's reckless deficit spending and perhaps to reverse some of the terrible legislation that he was able to pass under the 111th Congress. We will be in a position in 2012 to gain a majority in the Senate and to take back the White House if our elected legislators stick to our principles and do what they were sent there to do.

An Open Letter to the Freshman Republican Victors

2010-10-31T14:02:00.000-07:00

Erick Erickson wrote this article in Red State. This is an important message to our freshmen Republicans who will go to Washington in January 2011. They will be elected based on the conservative message they gave while they were campaigning. It is essential that they stay on message and don't get diverted by the politics of Washington away from protecting Americans through conservative principles. The new Republican Congressmen will have the ability to show the American people how conservative principles make life better in America. If they compromise on principle and yield to the big-government socialist-leaning Democrats, we will hold them accountable and replace them. We cannot afford to have the Republican brand tarnished again. GA

An Open Letter To The Freshman Republican Victors
By Erick Erickson

I am putting this up the Sunday before the election because in the noise and hubbub after the election it will be drowned out and it is very, very important.

If you are working on one of those challenger campaigns and will come into the House of Representatives and Senate after November 2nd, please read this and get your future Congressman or Senator to read it.

In the next 72 hours, you will be elected to the United States Congress. Suddenly you will find that you have friends you never knew you had. Remember that most of them are not actually your friends.

Many members of Congress will begin whispering sweet nothings in your ear wooing you to vote for them and their rules for the House and Senate. Remember that these same men are the exact same people that the voters rejected in 2006 and again in 2008.

Remember that every poll showing a Republican landslide on Tuesday also shows that the public hates these men.

Introduce yourself to Jeb Hensarling, Jeff Flake, and Jim Jordan. Talk with your fellow freshmen like Tim Huelskamp, Justin Amash, and Jeff Duncan. Those are the people who will become your closest friends who you’ll share a foxhole with when leadership fails you but a battle must be waged.

Remember that some of the people who will come to Congress with you, whether it is Charlie Bass or Steve Stivers or Kevin Yoder or Robert Hurt, etc. are unrepentant tax hixers and some will want to transcend partisanship to work across the aisle. You got elected by being the Party of No. Don’t let the sweet nothings of the Beltway suddenly convince you otherwise.

No is a very powerful word in Washington and it is not used often enough.

Finally, here is the last bit of advice I have for you today. Remember the GOP Pledge? One person — Barry Jackson, who is John Boehner’s Chief of Staff — single handedly had support for traditional marriage stripped from the Pledge and did so after showing a version of the Pledge to conservatives that had it in there to get their support.

One person and a staffer from John Boehner’s office no less.

When you get to Washington you will be told you need a professional staff of lobbyists, careerists, etc. to help guide you. You will be told that “you just don’t understand” or “you are naive” or “the School House Rock version of how a bill becomes a law is too simplified for the real world.”

The people telling you this are the people the voters hate and you should not trust. Largely they will be people in leadership, particularly staffers, who will soon depart for K Street where they hope to profit off their relationship with you. They will work with people like Trent Lott to try to co-opt you.

Fight.

Fight them.

Fight the idea that you must yield to their ways instead of them yielding to your ways. You, after all, have not been driven from power like these men have.

You will have friends you did not know you had who really are your friends when you stand up and fight your leadership. Do not let the Rules Committee be a tool of Leadership. Do not men like Jerry Lewis who helped drive us from power in 2006 remain in power. Do not let leadership have control over committee assignments.
Do not trust Mitch McConnell and Lame-R! Alexander and John Boehner and Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy even though they did so much for you. Remember, as much as they did for you, you are more important to them than they are to you. But for you, they would still be in the minority.

Do not trust the leadership’s staff. They view many of you as problems and potential disasters despite that you will vote more reliably Republican than their preferred candidates and pets.

You have it within you and with the word “No” to prevent the Republicans from going back to the ways that got them removed from office in 2006. Read this to find four easy ways to fix things once you get up there.

If you fight them you will be rewarded. If you succumb, the tea party will come for you in just a few short years.

Thomas Sowell - A Crossroads Election

2010-10-31T13:17:00.000-07:00

An excellent analysis by renowned economist and author, Thomas Sowell, of the coming election. This article appears in Townhall Magazine.

A Crossroads Election
By Thomas Sowell

Most elections are about particular policies, particular scandals or particular personalities. But these issues don't mean as much this year-- not because they are not important, but because this election is a crossroads election, one that can decide what path this country will take for many years to come.

Runaway "stimulus" spending, high unemployment and ObamaCare are all legitimate and important issues. It is just that freedom and survival are more important.

For all its sweeping and scary provisions, ObamaCare is not nearly as important as the way it was passed. If legislation can become laws passed without either the public or the Congress knowing what is in those laws, then the fundamental principle of a free, self-governing people is completely undermined.
Some members of Congress who voted for ObamaCare, and who are now telling us that they realize this legislation has flaws which they intend to correct, are missing the point.

The very reason for holding hearings on pending legislation, listening to witnesses on all sides of the issue, and having Congressional debates that will be reported and commented on in the media, is so that problems can be explored and alternatives considered before the legislation is voted into law.

Rushing ObamaCare into law too fast for anyone to have read it served no other purpose than to prevent this very process from taking place. The rush to pass this law that would not take effect until after the next two elections simply cut the voters out of the loop-- and that is painfully close to ruling by decree.

Other actions and proposals by this administration likewise represent moves in the direction of arbitrary rule, worthy of a banana republic, with only a mocking facade of freedom.

These include threats against people who simply choose to express opinions counter to administration policy, such as a warning to an insurance company that there would be "zero tolerance" for "misinformation" when the insurance company said that ObamaCare would create costs that force up premiums.

Zero tolerance for the right of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution?
This warning comes from an administration with arbitrary powers that can impose ruinous costs on a given business.

Those who are constantly telling us that our economic problems are caused by not enough "regulation" never distinguish between regulation which simply enforces known rules, as contrasted with regulation that gives arbitrary powers to the government to force others to knuckle under to demands that have nothing to do with the ostensible purposes of the regulation.

As more businesses reveal that they are considering no longer buying health insurance for their employees, as a result of higher costs resulting from ObamaCare legislation, the administration has announced that it can grant waivers that reduce these costs.

But the power to grant waivers is the power to withhold waivers-- an arbitrary power that can impose millions of dollars in costs on businesses that the administration doesn't like.

Recent proposals from the Obama administration to force disclosure of the names of people who sponsor election ads would likewise open all who disagree with Obama to retaliation by the government itself, as well as by community activists and others.

History tells us where giving government one arbitrary power after another leads. It is like going into a Venus fly-trap, which is easy to enter and nearly impossible to get out of.

The headstrong, know-it-all willfulness of this administration, which threatens our freedom at home, also threatens our survival in the international jungle, because Obama seems determined to do nothing that will stop Iran from going nuclear.

The Obama administration goes through all sorts of charades at the U.N. and signs international agreements on sanctions that have been watered down to the point where they are not about to bring Iran's nuclear weapons program to a halt. The purpose is not to stop Iran but to stop the American people from realizing what Obama is doing or not doing.

We have a strange man in the White House.

This election is a crossroads, because either his power will be curbed by depriving him of his huge Congressional majorities or he will continue on a road that jeopardizes both our freedom and our survival.

Why do Jews Vote for their Enemies?

2010-10-31T02:45:00.000-07:00

Another excellent article in The American Thinker (one of the best online journals of conservative thought in America) by James Lewis:

Why Do Jews Vote For Their Enemies
By James Lewis

American blacks vote Obama for the color of his skin. American Leftists vote O because they hope he will shaft this country more royally than anybody else has so far.

So what excuse do the Jews have? The black and the radical leftist vote O for reasons I can understand. Obama is black, even if his life experience has no relationship to the average American black person -- none at all. And Obama is a radical, so even the radicals have a reason. However, why does Obama keep his favorable standing with American Jews? It makes no sense.

With his favoritism for Muslims, by trying constantly to undermine the elected government of Israel and by constantly reaching out to a Hitler-wannabe in Iran, Obama has made it clear enough what side he's on. His friends Jodie Evans of Code Pink and Bill Ayers agitated for the Gaza flotilla that turned into a planned PR disaster for Israel. His administration supports the grotesque and shameful farce of Iran, the Sudan, and Libya sitting on the U.N. Human Rights Council. Those are genocidal, torturing, and utterly reactionary regimes. And that's just the start of Obama's bitter hatred of Israel and Western values. There's more coming -- you betcha.

American Jews are voting against their plain self-interest. They voted for someone who listened to J-Wright ranting against Jews and whites for twenty years. Wright is a race-hater, pure and simple, and he hates Whitey and the Jews. What's more, Michelle Obama is the daughter of a Chicago ward boss who grew up in that atmosphere, rife with Louis Farrakahn and the Black Muslims, J-Wright, and the ranting Father Pfleger. Michelle grew up with the Jesse Jackson family, and we know where Jesse stands. Put all that together, and you get classical Jew-hating. It's obvious to anybody who pays attention.

Obama's pal George Soros helped set up the phony front group J Street, which specializes in undermining Israel while claiming to defend it; it's classical Stalinist agitprop. Anybody could find that out. Granted that the media tried to cover it all up, but it's on the web, for goodness' sake. Use your fingers and it's right there.

Jews have the reputation of being intelligent, and academically, they often are. But Jewish smart people seem to be -- how shall I say this? -- incapable of thinking straight about politics. Once many Jews figure out what side in politics they are rooting for, they are stuck for life. No facts, no matter how persuasive, will change their minds. This is nuts. It is certainly not intelligent. In politics, American Jews seem to be idiots savant: Very bright in one part of life, but with big islands of ignorance, denial, and wishful thinking.

And yes, some of my best friends, and all that.

I can make up all kinds of imaginary reasons. Back in Europe it was the socialists and Soviets who ultimately did the most harm to the Nazis, so Eastern European Jews were drawn into that horrific maelstrom and chose the only side that wasn't systematically threatening and killing Jews. But that's historically one-sided. George Soros infamously grew up in Hungary selling the (stolen) furniture and art of the Jews who were marched to the concentration camp. Liberal Jews still admire the man.

Jews are attracted to the fantasy world of the lion lying down with the lamb. But reality tells us it hasn't happened yet, and the chances that peace will break out all over are not high. The Left constantly runs that sucker play, and American Jews fall for it. I've talked with Jewish friends, and I keep trying to figure it out. Can't they spot a cruel scam when they see it? Where is their intelligence?

The Jews in Europe had a very bad time with Catholics and Orthodox of various stripes, especially in Poland and Russia. And yet the European Enlightenment that started the liberation of Jews from the medieval ghetto was created by many Christians and some Jews. Historically, Christianity has both anti-Semitic elements and philo-Semitic ones, as the historian Paul Johnson points out in his history of the Jews. Listen to Mozart's Requiem Mass. Half the text comes from the Hebrew Bible.

A billion Muslims in the world are exposed to classic anti-Semitic hate propaganda. You can see it day by day on the MEMRI website, with straight translations from the Persian and Arab language media. Hate-Jew cartoons are all over those Islamic media. Hitler's Mein Kampf sells like hotcakes in Egypt. The Saudis sponsored a truly filthy TV series shown throughout the Arab world based on the Elders of Zion, the phony czarist anti-Jewish propaganda tale. (It features those folks with caricatured Shylock faces who are constantly plotting to take over the world, talking like Snidely Whiplash and rubbing their hand in glee while they are preparing to kill a Christian baby for Passover.) This is sleazy, nasty, hateful, and moronic stuff. Arab audiences in Egypt and Iran just love it. They are mental throwbacks to the Dark Ages.

And yet, American Jews vote for Obama. Now, Obama himself is careful to avoid any appearance of militant hatred of Jews. He just inveighs against "Wall Street Fat Cats" and "Neo-cons" and protects Black Muslims who are caught in voter intimidation in Philadelphia. A lot of those targets of abuse are Jews, and a lot of them sort of agree with Obama's rants against capitalism. But capitalism frees people, and the Jews, who have suffered more than their share of oppression, should recognize that instantly.

Half of American Jews are women. Women are badly used and abused both sexually and physically throughout the Islamic world. So are gay people. So are Christians who profess a religion that does not elevate Muhammad as the last prophet. Jews by the million have been forced to leave Muslim countries and are now settled in Israel and America. Every other day Ahmadinejad issues another nuclear threat against Tel Aviv. The Muslim Brotherhood, which inspired Hamas, has acted to destroy Jews and Israelis since its World War II alliance with Hitler. Jimmy Carter is a big fan of Hamas and brought that other medieval throwback, Ayatollah Khomeini, into power, thereby driving Jews and other Iranians out of that country.

And still the Jews vote 70-plus percent for their enemies.

Two plus two does not equal four.

This is not adult, rational behavior. It is not intelligent. It is not wise or benevolent. It is not charitable toward the weak and oppressed peoples of the earth. It is not good for future generations. And as 97 percent of the Israeli public has decided, Obama is very bad for Israel; after all, he's done nothing visible about Iranian nukes, which are the biggest genocidal danger to Israel ever. A second Holocaust has never been closer. Obama's backed off now for the election, but he'll be back at Netanyahu's throat as soon as the election is past. His White House "advisors" are all for shafting Israel but good. It's their substitute for sane foreign policy.

Something isn't right here. People usually don't vote for those who hate them and who constantly act in alliance with genocidal haters like Hamas and the Iranian fascisti.

Something isn't right.

Now watch the midterm elections, when the country will render its first verdict on Obama and his cronies in office, on the recession, the insanely high budgets, Obama's friendly alliances with ranting enemies of America and Israel.

I'll bet that Obama's crew gets more than 50 percent of the Jewish vote in the midterms.

Is this crazy, or what?

Socialism and Reality - Steve McCann

2010-10-31T02:12:00.000-07:00

Steve McCann writing in The American Thinker:

The images on the television screen emanating from Europe are a sobering reminder that socialism has failed wherever it has been tried and will always do so despite the best efforts of the die-hard true believers. The riots in the streets of France and Greece, the announced layoffs of nearly 500,000 government employees in the United Kingdom, and the potential national bankruptcy of Ireland, Spain, Italy, and Portugal are the current face of this failure.

Yet within the halls of power in Washington, D.C. there is a socialist/progressive cabal, and its titular leader Barack Obama, oblivious to this reality. These ideologues continue to cling to the belief that they have a unique ability to succeed where so many others have failed. The egocentric American Left know no bounds, and their determination to impose their will upon the United States has not and will not abate despite the results of any election.

Having been raised to believe in their preordinance to rule and incubated in an environment of national peace, prosperity, and a lack of adversity, these adherents to a powerful central government, with themselves at the controls, are incapable of change and admitting failure despite overwhelming current and historical evidence.

An important article very relevant to our times. Please read it.

McCann concludes:

Within the United States, because of the socialist indoctrination of the governing class, this process is well on its way and will culminate, if not stopped now, in the end of this nation as an economic and military power.

The founding fathers of the United States, one of the greatest confluences of brilliant minds in the history of mankind, understood the basic nature of human beings. They accordingly set forth a form of government and written Constitution to greatly limit those who seek hegemony over the people and to limit the ability of the people to seek unlimited security from a central government. They recognized that only the individual free to pursue economic happiness will result in a society wherein all can benefit on a sustained basis.

President Obama and his minions represent the greatest threat to the United States since its founding. The images of failure from around the globe must not be lost on the American citizens. They must understand that the country's destiny rests in utilizing the governmental structure bequeathed to them by the founders to strip away, as quickly as possible, the power expropriated by today's ruling class.

The winning of elections is tantamount. However, there must also be a concurrent resolve to purge the destructive and delusional philosophy of socialism from the institutions of government. Only then can the United States avoid the fate looming over the horizon.

Read the whole article, and let your liberal friends and family read it.

Radical in the White House - Stanley Kurtz

2010-10-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Stanley Kurtz, author of the new must-buy book, Radical in the White House. Kurtz reveals the true agenda of Barack Obama.

Stanley Kurtz hit an Organizing for America nerve during Barack Obama’s campaign for president. Stanley, a Harvard-educated social anthropologist, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and has written for National Review and National Review Online for over a decade. When he started not only asking questions but digging into Barack Obama’s academic and activist past, the campaign tried to shut him down — literally, organizing a phone slamdown on Chicago radio.

Well, this still is America. And so Stanley has done what he is trained to do — research and present evidence to present a complete picture, in this case of the man who is currently president of the United States. The fruit of that project is a gripping, meticulous new book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, which he discusses with me here.

The interview in The National Review Online is very enlightening. Here are some excerpts:

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What is so bad about being a Radical-in-Chief?

STANLEY KURTZ: There are two key problems. First, Obama’s slow-motion socialism undercuts liberty and prosperity on behalf of a highly questionable view of fairness. Second, and at least as disturbing, Obama’s practice of disguising his ideological views is bad for democracy, which depends upon informed public choice.

[...]

LOPEZ: How important is ACORN to understanding Barack Obama and the Democratic party today? Is ACORN still a factor?

KURTZ: I present a great deal of new documentary evidence detailing Obama’s longstanding relationship with ACORN. When you compare all this new material with Obama’s statements in 2008, it’s obvious that he lied about his relationship with ACORN. That’s important because it calls into question Obama’s credibility on the matter of his radical beliefs and associations. To this day, Obama and the Democrats blame the financial crisis exclusively on deregulation. The contribution of ACORN and the Democrats to the origins of the subprime-lending crisis is not as widely known as it should be. The book uncovers archival documents that allow us to recover ACORN’s extensive role in the origins of the financial crisis. Fascinating documents with ACORN’s inside account of its meetings with President Clinton and his officials tell us everything about the financial crisis that Obama and the Democrats don’t want us to hear. The mentality that got us into the crisis is still at play, with both Obama and the Democrats. That is the big lesson. But ACORN itself hasn’t disappeared. ACORN is a kind of giant organizational shell game, and the recent change of name is just another move in that game.

[...]

LOPEZ: If Obama is so smart, why are the Democrats going to lose big on Tuesday?

KURTZ: Most people don’t realize that community organizers fail a lot more often than they succeed. That’s not because they’re dumb, but because, fundamentally, they are trying to manipulate people into following the organizer’s own political path. It isn’t easy to get people to travel down a political path that is not truly their own, but that is what community organizers try to do. Smarts alone can only get you so far along that road. Having said that, I argue in the book that Obama isn’t in quite as hopeless a position as he may seem to be right now. Obama has adopted a high-risk strategy. His long-term goal is to polarize the parties along class lines, thereby driving the country substantially to the left. He’s taking big chances to get there, but there is a plausible long-term scenario for success. I go into this in some detail in the final chapter.

The interview is important to read. It is more important to read Kurtz' book .

STANLEY KURTZ is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, as well as a contributing editor for National Review Online. He has also written for National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, Policy Review, and Commentary.

CSP: Obama's not-so-hidden agenda

2010-10-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

Center for Security Policy | Oct 26, 2010

By Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Earlier this year, President Obama drove U.S.-Israeli relations - to use one of President Obama's oft-employed analogies - into a ditch. Arguably, ties between the two countries were never more strained than last Spring when Mr. Obama serially insulted the elected leader of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, vilified his country and tried to euchre it into making territorial, political and other ill-advised concessions to Arabs determined as ever to destroy the Jewish State. Unfortunately, what the President has in mind for Israel after the election next week will make his previous treatment of the Jewish State look like the good old days.

To be sure, ties between the United States and Israel - far and away America's most important and loyal friend in the Middle East - have improved lately from the nadir to which Mr. Obama plunged them since he took office. That has nothing to do, however, with a change of heart or agenda on the part of the President and his administration.

Rather, it is a reflection of a cynical calculation forced upon the Obama White House by its panicked congressional allies. Already laboring under the backbreaking burden of their association with a president and his agenda that have become huge liabilities, Democrats on Capitol Hill faced wholesale defections of their Jewish constituents and funders if their party's leader persisted in his assault on Israel. Public letters and private conversations had the desired effect: Barack Obama began treating his Israeli counterpart with a modicum of respect and the optics of a restarted peace process - however shortlived or doomed - helped conjur up an image of a renewed partnership between the two nations.
Make no mistake about it, though: Once the 2010 elections are behind him, it is a safe bet that President Obama will revert to form by once again exhibiting an unmistakable and ruthless determination to bend Israel to his will.

Worse yet, he will be able to take advantage of a vehicle for effecting the so-called "two state solution," no matter how strenuously Israel and its friends in Washington object: The Palestinians will simply unilaterally declare themselves a state and ask for international recognition - and Mr. Obama will accede to that request.

A number of the particulars involved in this gambit are unclear at the moment. For example, will the Palestinians announce the borders of their state to be the 1967 cease-fire lines, in which case large Israeli population centers (defiled as "settlements") will be inside a nation that is certain to be, to use Hitler's phrase, judenrein (free of Jews)? How will the Hamas-stan of Gaza be connected to the currently PLO-run West Bank - in a way that will make them "contiguous" without bisecting the Jewish state and ensuring that Hamas does not take over the rest of the so-called "Palestinian authority"?

Also unclear is precisely how Mr. Obama will handle the sticky issue of extending U.S. recognition of Palestine. Will he want to parallel Harry Truman's direct and immediate endorsement of the establishment of Israel in 1948? Or will he do it more disingenuously, as former UN Ambassador John Bolton speculated in the Wall Street Journal last week, by having the United States abstain from an approving vote by the United Nations Security Council. The hope behind the latter would be that Team Obama and its partisans will somehow avoid retribution from Israel's friends, both Democrats and others, both here and abroad.

The truth is that, either way, Mr. Obama will have dealt Israel a potentially mortal blow. Without control of the high ground and water aquifers of the West Bank, the Jewish state is simply indefensible and unsustainable. Some may suggest that international forces (perhaps led by the United States) should be deployed in the areas Jews have historically known as Judea and Samaria so as to ensure that they are not used to harm Israelis in the low-lying areas to the west.

We have seen how such arrangements work in practice in Lebanon, though-- which is to say not well.

In southern Lebanon, UN "peacekeepers" have merely wound up protecting Israel's enemies, notably Hezbollah, as such foes of both the Jewish State and our own have amassed immense amounts of missiles and other arms and prepared to resume hostilities against Israel at a moment of that Iranian-backed terrorist group's choosing (or, more precisely, that of their sponsors in Tehran.) The same is certain to eventuate in the West Bank as paramilitary forces the United States has foolishly trained and equipped become a standing army and fall under the sway of Hamas.

Such a "two-state solution" will make another regional war vastly more likely, not prevent it. Yet, the Obama administration is committed to pursuing that goal as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made excrutiatingly clear in a pandering speech to the Americah Task Force on Palestine last week.

Among other ominous comments, she declared that "the World Bank recently reported that if the Palestinian Authority maintains its momentum in building institutions and delivering public services, it is, and I quote, ‘well-positioned for the establishment of a state at any point in the near future.'" She seemed determined in particular to emphasize the last seven words.

Voters need to know now whether President Obama and those in Congress who support his agenda are determined to help Israel's enemies destroy her - not find out that is the case after the elections.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

Theater of the Absurd

2010-09-13T01:54:00.000-07:00

By Martin Sherman

Published in YNet News.com

Obama, after the "pragmatic" Palestinians have repudiated any idea of "historic compromise," any recognition of Jewish national sovereignty: "…so far the talks are moving forward in a constructive way…"

You couldn’t make this stuff up!

In a different universe the recent events regarding the rekindling of the "peace process" could well be the stuff of a macabre comedy, couched and conveyed in deliberately overstated caricature.

But sadly in this universe they portend tragedy.

It has been an almost inconceivable spectacle, beginning with the Israeli prime minister traveling to Washington to express his resolve and commitment to implement a policy that he has repeatedly repudiated – and ridiculed - for over a decade and a half.


Macabre Comedy

Even more astonishing is the fact that he did so not because his earlier criticism was proven unfounded in any way, but despite the fact that it was proven well founded in every way; not because his previous warnings that the policy would herald disaster were proven wrong but despite the fact that they were proven right.

Yet the absurdity does not end here. In the Alice-in-Wonderland world of Middle East politics things get "curiouser and curiouser."

No less astounding than Netanyahu's acquiescence to discuss the implementation of the very policy he correctly predicted would fail, is the identity of the "partner" with whom he assented to do so. The Palestinian negotiation team is led by Mahmoud Abbas, someone who has neither the formal legality (since his terms of office has expired) nor the political legitimacy (since his authority in not recognized by a sizeable segment of the electorate) to do so.

And then enter Hamas. With an impeccable sense of timing, Abbas' radical adversaries carried out two brutal terror attacks on Israelis, dramatically demonstrating that the man Netanyahu has incongruously deemed “my-partner-in-peace” cannot control events in the areas he purports to administer- underscoring both the impotence of the Palestinian "partner" and pointlessness of negotiating with him.

For what would be the value of an agreements reached if there is no guarantee that the Palestinian signatories will be any position to honor or enforce them, even assuming they desire to do so?

Abbas wants to shape Israel

And just to drive home the absurdity and futility of the entire exercise, after explicitly rejecting Netanyahu's call for a "historic compromise," Abbas pronounced categorically that "we won't recognize Israel as a Jewish state," as to do so would "block any chance of Palestinian refugees from returning to their original homes inside Israel."

This was reiterated the very next day by senior Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath, who declared that "The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state," since this "would…prevent Palestinian refugees, who left their homes and villages a number of decades ago, from being granted the right to return to them."

So not only do the Palestinian leaders openly admit that they will never recognize the Jews' right to political sovereignty in the Israel, but by obdurately insisting on the "right of return," they make it quite clear that the only agreement acceptable to them is one that would make the maintenance of such political sovereignty untenable.

Now one might well ask: If Netanyahu is not recognized by his Palestinian interlocutors as representing the Jewish nation-state, precisely in what capacity is he participating in the "process"? But an even more troubling conundrum arises: In what capacity is Abbas doing so? For it seems that he has adopted a trans-national - or at least a trans-frontier - posture, speaking not only for the people he foresees living under the sovereignty of the envisioned Palestinian state, but also for those who he foresees will not!

Indeed, Abbas' demands are not restricted to shaping the future state of Palestine, its character, the extent of its boundaries and the composition of its population (i.e. Judenrein with all the Jewish "settlements" evacuated and all the Jewish settlers expelled.) His demands extend to shaping the character of the State of Israel and to what the composition of its population should be (which à la Abbas is to include millions of non-Jewish Palestinian "refugees.")

In short, the "president" of a yet-to-be-established state - whose term of office has expired and whose legitimacy is contested by a significant portion of those he purports to represent - lays down, as a categorical demand, that for any agreement to be reached literally millions of people from third-party countries must be admitted as citizens - not into the sovereign territory of putative state over which he supposedly will have authority but into the sovereign territory of another state.

Like I said: You couldn’t make this stuff up!

Why help faltering, anti-Israel president?

But perhaps the most macabre aspect of this preposterous tragic-comic spectacle is that it the only conceivable reason for Israel to participate in it at all, is to mollify a floundering US Administration desperate for some indication – any indication - of success to boost its flagging popularity

Now had this been an Administration that had wide spread support across the US, there might have been some justification in reluctantly acquiescing to its behest. Alternatively, had this been an Administration which was favorably disposed towards Israel there might have been some argument for lending it support in a time of distress. But neither of these is true.

On the one hand, the approval rates for the Obama Administration have been dropping like a lead balloon with public support evaporating with each passing week. On the other hand, the Obama Administration been described as arguably "the most anti-Israel Administration in the modern history of the state of Israel."

So what conceivable political rationale is there in Netanyahu embracing a policy that rewards the White House's hostility and hubris and accommodates Israel's humiliation? What is possible political wisdom is there in providing the deeply unpopular incumbent Administration anything that might make it "look good"; anything that could give it any electoral advantage over the far more Israel-friendly Republican Party - especially as the crucial mid-term elections approach?

And if anyone thought that matter could not get any more farcical, they would be wrong. For just recently, Obama issued his latest exhortation for Netanyahu to make another gesture and extend the soon-to-expire building freeze. His reasoning: After the "pragmatic" Palestinians have repudiated any idea of making an "historic compromise" and any recognition of Jewish national sovereignty 60 years after Israel's establishment, was:

"…so far the talks are moving forward in a constructive way, it makes sense to extend that moratorium so long as the talks are moving in a constructive way."

You couldn't make this stuff up! Or have I said that before?

9-11 The Day the Sky Fell

2010-09-10T09:40:00.000-07:00

This Saturday will mark the ninth anniversary of the day when many of us woke up to the fact that we had been attacked, and that thousands of innocent people had been killed in Manhattan at the World Trade Center by Islamist jihadists. This was not the first time that terrorists, in the name of Islam, had attempted to destroy the World Trade Center, and the people in it. This was the time they succeeded.

The Day the Sky Fell

My friend, Daniel Greenfield, has written an excellent essay about September 11th, titled "The Day the Sky Fell" I encourage you to go to his site and read it.

Some excerpts:

"That Tuesday we faced a new world. A world in which the sky fell. And some of us rose to face the challenges. And some of us fled into the comforts of the Monday that had come before, and all the days and years before it. Escaping history. Fleeing destiny. Forgetting that the world had changed, and no amount of politics as usual could make it stay the same."

[...]

"9/11 changed that. It tore down the sky and opened a gaping hole in the self-centered arrogance that had been the legacy of the 90's, best exemplified by its champion, the morally ambiguous William Jefferson Clinton. It reminded us that we cannot just be satisfied with bread and circuses. That the world does not exist for our amusement. And that all views and beliefs are not created equal. That despite the ironic detachment of pop culture, there was a right and a wrong. And that despite the retreat from faith in a higher being, to a faith in our own technocratic castles in the sky, there was such a thing as good and evil. And not that we had forgotten that we were meant to be the good-- evil had come to pay a call on us."

His article is an excellent piece about 9/11 and I recommend highly that you take a couple of minutes to read it.

We ask that you will join us in remembering and celebrating the brave citizens and first responders who gave their lives on that fateful morning. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends who lost someone during that craven attack on America.

Sincerely,

Gary Aminoff
President
San Fernando Valley Republican Club

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

2010-07-03T22:51:00.000-07:00

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
July 4th 1776

Two hundred thirty four years ago, a group of farmers, merchants and lawyers, citizens of the British colonies in America, exasperated at their treatment by a repressive colonial government, did an extraordinary and very dangerous act by declaring the independence of their new country, The United States of America, from England.

Trumbull: Signing of the Declaration of Independence

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

The immortal words of the Declaration of Independence reflect the revolutionary ideas of those colonists who decided they valued freedom over security:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Read the full text of the Declaration of Independence.

On this Fourth of July in 2010 when our liberty seems to be under threat, let us all celebrate the principles that this great nation stands for: Life, Liberty and the right to pursue happiness, free from the intrusive restraints of government. The revolution that started on July 4th 1776 was the spark that ignited the quest for Liberty in mankind throughout the world. We must be careful that the light of Liberty which originated in this unique country not be extinguished or dimmed.
And....be sure to fly the colors on the 4th.

God Bless America!

The Difference between Democrats and Republicans

2010-07-03T21:32:00.000-07:00

Which side of the fence?
If you ever wondered which side of the fence you sit on, this is a great test!

If a Republican doesn't like guns, he doesn’t buy one.
If a Democrat doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a Republican is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.
If a Democrat is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a Republican is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a Democrat is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a Republican is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A Democrat wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a Republican doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Democrats demand that those they don't like be shut down.

If a Republican is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.
A Democrat non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.

If a Republican decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A Democrat demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a Republican reads this, he'll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.
A Democrat will delete it because he's "offended".

Private Sector Jobs Disappear...Public Sector Jobs Grow

2010-06-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

Since the start of the recession, 8 million private sector jobs have been lost, but there has been job growth of 600,000 in the public sector. Since the stimulus bill was passed, private sector employment is down more than 2.6 million, but public sector employment is up 400,000.

The reality- this Administration, like all administrations, can not create PRIVATE sector jobs, but like governments everywhere, it knows how to expand itself.

Our economy will not recover until there is growth in private sector jobs, and a reduction in public sector jobs.

The Individuality of Man

2010-06-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

Barry Goldwater, in 1961, wrote an essay in a conservative journal founded at Tulane University called "The Liberator." In this essay he explains his concept of "the whole man", a phrase he used in his nomination acceptance speech in 1964 and in other talks.

Conservatives are interested in the whole man, while the radical-liberals confine their interest to the material side of his nature. Conservatives believe that man is in part an economic and animal creature, but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires.… The conservative respects the individuality of man, realizing that man's spiritual and material development is not something that can be directed by outside forces. Every man, for his individual good and the good of his society, is responsible for his own development. The choices that govern his life are choices that he, not a super-state, must make. And these are choices that must involve the whole man [emphasis Goldwater's own], if they are to be the right choices. If life were concerned only with material things, as the Liberal approach indicates, then I suppose the conduct of some men might be justified. The materialistic philosophies of Marx and Engels, which call for the suppression of the individual and glorify the collective, are only acceptable to people who deny the possibility of a more significant explanation for man's existence….

The Liberals, with their emphasis on collectivism and conformity, and their willingness to use compulsion to achieve their ends, are actually suggesting a course of action which thoughtful men have rejected throughout history. The reason man must be treated as an individual is because he has an individual immortal soul. Thus, his freedom comes from God -- as do all of his rights. In the scheme of things, government's only proper role is in the protection of man's God-given freedoms and rights. [All emphases again are Goldwater's own.]

The conservative recognizes that the concentration of power in the hands of the few has always been the undoing of those who aspired to the fruits of freedom. Aware of the overbearing evidence of history as to the truth of this postulate, the conservative is fearful of the concentration of power which accompanies central government.

And then, with high relevance today, this: "I am convinced that most Americans now want to reverse the trend. I think that concern for our vanishing freedoms is genuine. I think that the people's uneasiness in the stifling omnipresence of government has turned into something approaching alarm…."

Quin Hillyer, whose father was the publisher of The Liberator does some reminiscing over at The American Spectator, from which this Goldwater quote was taken.

America as Texas vs. California: Who’s Moving Where Edition

2010-06-21T17:35:00.000-07:00

America as Texas vs. California: Who’s Moving Where Edition

View this map (click on a county) to see whether people are leaving or moving into the specific county.

Texas’s low-cost, liberty-loving atmosphere has become an attractive alternative to California’s oppressive public sector and dysfunctional policy environment. No amount of heart-melting vistas, celebrity sightings, or traipses through wine country can make up for what almost appears a strategic attempt by one of the nation’s largest states to drive businesses and productive people away.

Now let’s look at California. Aside from the appeal of Los Angeles to people living in the high-cost northeast (you might as well have good beaches and sunny weather if you’re paying high taxes for bad services), it appears the city of angels is losing its heavenly radiance in a massive way. San Diego also looks very red. San Francisco (not included here) has a surprisingly black hue to it in defiance of that beautiful city’s high cost of living, but it has a noticeably lower volume than the other great California cities.

When Bad Rabbis Happen to a Good People

2010-06-20T23:54:00.000-07:00

When Bad Rabbis Happen to a Good People

Are you ready for Rabbis Gone Wild -- Boston Edition? In the latest installment of this tragicomedy, the progressive Jewish leadership of Massachusetts decides to break the arrogance barrier and set new records for dangerous egomania.

First, let's meet our cast: seventy distinguished rabbis in Greater Boston, including the Past President of Hebrew College. Boy, you could fell an ox with the collective weight of these worthies' credentials.

And now, the bloodcurdling story: On June 10, these seventy men and women publicly condemned and virtually excommunicated one of the finest American Jewish leaders and human rights activist alive today.

Why? Because Dr. Charles Jacobs has the chutzpah to present documented facts about the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, Boston's increasingly infamous, radical-linked, Saudi-funded mega-mosque.

Read the whole article.

What is the Greatest Single Threat to our Country? Prager Answers.

2010-06-15T15:36:00.000-07:00

What Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza?

2010-06-14T21:32:00.000-07:00

There has been an attempt by many organizations around the world over the past year to establish the appearance of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Even US based organizations, like JStreet, have convinced members of Congress that this is true.

It is not true.

The bottom line is that there is no lack of goods going into Gaza. Each week the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes the amount of aid transferred into Gaza. See a comprehensive report here and a weekly update here.

Israel agrees that there is a humanitarian crisis, but it is not due to lack of goods entering Gaza, its the fact that Gaza is ruled by a terrorist organization.

Look back to 2005, Israel withdrew completely allowing the Palestinians to decide on their own how to govern.

In 2007 Hamas expelled Fatah moderates in a bloody battle (good reference here.) and began attacking Israeli towns with rocket barrages.

From 2007 to 2009 literally thousands of rockets rained down on civilian territories (see detailed stats here). In response, Israel along with Egypt, imposed a naval blockade. For an interesting perspective from Egypt go here.

The other nations in the area are wary of radicals like Hamas infiltrating and gaining a political foothold in their country and destabilizing the state so in practice they agree with Israel - yet the public rhetoric is always anti-Israel. Though Egypt has since left its border with Gaza open (though I'm not sure what "open" really means) I believe that soon they will resume their own blockade once public attention drifts.

The bottom line is that Israel, along with Egypt, wants to ensure that Hamas cannot arm itself. Why? Because if Hamas resumes its attacks against Israel, then Israel will retaliate and the Gazans will seek refuge in Egypt - and Egypt does not want to support that population. To see an Arab blogger's political analysis re: Egypt 2009, go here. Go here to see where Egypt opens fire against Gazans in 2009. Go here and here to see how Egypt deals with the Gazans in 2010. I am curious why the international community makes no criticism of Egypt, only of Israel? (Not really!)

With the above information and analysis Israel is clearly justified and is acting morally both in defense of its own citizens and in providing aid to the Gazans. But it does beg the question - where is the Arab support of Palestinians?

They pledge millions but never deliver.

Meanwhile in the West Bank conditions are very different: The West Bank is experiencing a 7% economic growth rate, declining unemployment, growing tourism and a wage increase of 24% this year. Read Bloomberg's analysis of the West Bank economy here. One wonders why the West Bank is prospering and Gaza is not? The answer lies in who governs Gaza. There is no Hamas in the West Bank, and the West Bank isn't firing rockets into Israel or threatening Israel. See Ambassador Oren's article about the West Bank here. For a comprehensive report on both the West Bank and Gaza go here. The same prosperity could occur in Gaza as well if Hamas agreed to cease hostilities and work with Israel like Fatah is doing. That is not likely.

The bottom line is that the residents of Gaza do not suffer from a lack of essential goods or medical supplies. The press has been complicit with Hamas in attempting to present a picture of humanitarian need in Gaza when none, in reality, exists.

Egyptian Foreign Minister: Obama Admits He Is A Muslim

2010-06-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

"I am a Muslim," Obama Tells Egyptian Foreign Minister Gheit Islamic Coup on the White House

Aid to Hamas??

2010-06-10T17:39:00.000-07:00

Investors Business Daily writes in an editorial today:

Diplomacy: President Obama sat for a White House photo op with the Palestinian Authority's leader and then announced a $400 million aid package for the West Bank and Gaza. What's wrong with this picture?

The president seemed to go out of his way this week to please his latest guest, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, in a way he didn't when Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, came calling last month.

Why is the White house providing $400 Million in aid to a terrorist regime?

Why the U.S. should be supporting a regime that so far this year has fired 370 lethal rockets into Israel, that still refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist and that has made a cottage industry of teaching children to hate is beyond us.

Extra cash for the same people who danced in the streets on 9/11 will just free up more resources for new terror and mayhem against the Jewish state. Some $10 billion has been spent globally in the last decade on Palestine, and places like Gaza remain as miserably pro-terrorist as ever.

This gift to a terrorist regime that kills its people for singing and dancing at a wedding because it is against sharia law does not deserve aid from the United States.

The editorial concludes:

If the plan is to buy off Gazans so they'll vote for non-terrorists, it's hard to see how this would work. Hamas could refuse to let the U.S. build the schools, just as the group refused aid from Israel-inspected ships that ran the Gaza blockade. These aren't people who help themselves.

Nor can such aid ever help them as long as they remain committed to Israel's destruction. President Obama's aid offer was both expensive and naive.

Read the whole article.

An Open Letter to American Jews

2010-06-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

AN OPEN LETTER TO AMERICAN JEWS
By Ben Shapiro

Dear American Jews,

I write to you as a charter member of the tribe. I'm not only Jewish, I'm religious. I'm married to an Israeli girl (she'll receive her citizenship next year and she is a proud soon-to-be American). I go to synagogue regularly, keep kosher, keep the Sabbath.

American Jews, I have one request of you: please pull your heads out of your posteriors.

I mean that in all sincerity. Your continued support for Democrats and an administration that is openly anti-Semitic is a disgrace. Your embrace of a party that seeks to hamstring Israel in the name of a wholly fictitious Middle East peace process is contemptible. Your loyalty to a president who consistently sides with Palestinian and Iranian mass murder-supporters is disgusting.

Your backing of a man who has spent his life surrounding himself with the worst anti-Semites America has to offer -- Jeremiah Wright, Rashid Khalidi (former Palestinian terrorist spokesman), Louis Farrakhan ("I don't like the way [Jews] leech on us"), Samantha Power, Robert Malley, to name a few -- is nothing short of reprehensible. Rahm Emanuel's presence in the Obama cabinet doesn't ameliorate Obama's anti-Semitism -- it just provides it convenient cover. Al Sharpton wrongly called Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell "house negroes"; Emanuel is a kapo.

Even as you continue to buttress a president who seeks the destruction of your co-religionists, you demonstrate your myopia by rejecting the tea party movement and evangelical Christian Israel-supporters.

The tea party movement is your ally for three important reasons. First, it supports capitalism against the forces of socialism -- and capitalism keeps America strong enough to provide Israel with a hand against its evil adversaries. Second, American Jews are, by far, the highest-earning religious group in the United States -- the tea party fights for your right to keep your money. Third, the tea party stands against government overreach -- and in an era when government overreach promotes anti-religious secularism, Jews must stand with the tea party.

Your rejection of evangelical Christians is even more idiotic. Evangelical Christians are the only major voting bloc preventing President Obama from breaking ties with Israel. When Janet Porter, an evangelical Florida talk show host, heard about Obama's anti-Israel tyranny, she responded by asking her listeners to buy dozens of yellow roses to send to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office as a show of support. The price per dozen: $19.48, in honor of the year of Israel's founding (1948). Over 14,000 flowers were delivered. Meanwhile, Adm. James Jones, Obama's national security adviser and the man who brought Jew-hater Zbigniew Brzezinski into Obama's inner circle, was busy telling anti-Semitic jokes before the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"But they want to convert us!" many American Jews shout. Not all Christians do. But for the rest -- so what? Would you sacrifice the support of millions of good-hearted Christians because they want to discuss Jesus with you? If your own belief system is so fragile, the weakness is yours, not theirs. While you expend energy whining about Jehovah's Witnesses who show up at your door with a Bible, Obama supports radical Muslims who would show up at your door with a gun -- or, as in the case of Daniel Pearl, a butcher's knife.

Now, I understand, American Jews, that most of you don't care about Israel.

I understand that you're more concerned about a woman's unconditional right to abort her unborn child (which Judaism rejects) than you are about Israel. Fine. Understand that you have removed yourself from the vast river of Jewish history in favor of a chimerical morality that values libertinism over liberty.

I understand that many of you -- all of you above age 70 -- still think FDR is alive. He isn't, but Jimmy Carter is.

I understand that some of you still think that conservatives and Republicans are the same folks they were during the 1950s, when they banned you from country clubs. They aren't.

The simple fact is this: There is only one mainstream political ideology in this country that asks you to check your principles and cultural history at the door in the name of the greater good -- leftism, the same ideology that virtually exterminated Judaism in Russia and Europe. While the left exploits your adherence to bagel-and-lox Judaism by appealing to your watered-down and perverted "tikkun olam" sensibilities, you are enabling your own destruction. The same people who urge you to reach out to terrorists will be the first to sacrifice you to those terrorists' tender mercies. The same people who urge you to worry about same-sex marriage rather than religious freedom will be the first to take your religious freedoms away.

I love you, my brothers and sisters. That's why I'm writing to you. Time is running out; the clock is winding down. Pick a side.

The Real Hamas

2010-06-07T21:04:00.000-07:00

We have heard from many lately that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but is a humanitarian, charitable organization. This is another lie spread by the Islamists.

Hamas is a radical Islamist terrorist organization that forces the Palestinian people to comply with Sharia law through threat, intimidation, terror and ultimately death. The following is a video, prepared by an Israeli Arab opposed to Hamas, showing the true face of Hamas.

In this video you will see a wedding in Gaza at which the wedding party is having a good time,dancing and celebrating the joyous occasion. That is forbidden under sharia law. This video shows Hamas arriving at the wedding scene, killing the participants, including the bride and groom because they were playing music and dancing.

There are many scenes in this video of how Hamas treats the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza. This is the leadership that the Gazans elected, and therefore, the leadership they deserve. But don't let anyone tell you that Hamas is a benign organization, as you can see for yourself.

The Palestinians will have a better life, and possibly peace, if they can get rid of Hamas. I am not sure that is likely.

Book Review: "Why are Jews Liberals?"

2010-06-05T16:01:00.000-07:00

A Book Review By DICK MORRIS of Why Are Jews Liberals? By Norman Podhoretz

It is the question that sooner or later baffles every political pundit, consultant, expert, or observer. Why do American Jews persist in their adoration of the Democratic Party? Why, like an abused spouse, do they tolerate Israel-bashing, support for the Palestinians and Democratic softness on terrorism and still return for more? As the richest demographic group in our population, why do they still vote for Obama and donate money to him when he specifically proposes to raise the taxes on those making more than $200,000 per year?

Why do they let liberal politicians embrace the likes of Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Jeremiah Wright and still support them on Election Day?

I don´t have an answer and have never heard a satisfactory one from any leader of an American Jewish or pro-Israeli organization.

But Norman Podhoretz does and he explains his ideas in his brilliant book Why Are Jews Liberals?

American Jews, Podhoretz explains, grew up in liberal homes heavily influenced by the ideology they inherited from their Eastern European ancestors. There, in Russia and Germany, you either followed the Kaiser´s or the Czar´s line or were a Communist. Reacting to their exclusion and the pogroms that harassed them, these ghetto Jews readily embraced Marxism. Indeed, Marx was, himself, born a Jew and the majority of the first Bolshevik Politburo in 1917 were Jews. When Hitler railed against Jews and Communists, he often felt no need to distinguish between the two.

In the New World, communism morphed into socialism in the early years of the twentieth century when Eugene V. Debs won a million votes (almost 10%) on the Socialist Party ticket for President. Finally, under the more benign influence of FDR and the New Deal, this leftist impulse settled into the cozy niche of liberalism where it has remained ever since.

Zionism, also, closely identified itself with socialism and the Labor Party of Golda Meier and David Ben Gurion, which dominated Israel´s early years, pushed its ideological agenda. Kibbutzim were formed with communal living as a Fabian or utopian socialism took root in the holy land. So leftist were the early Israelis that Russia recognized the state of Israel even before the United States did in the hopes that it could become a socialist ally. The political majority which underscored this leftist bent was based on Jews descended from the ghettos of Europe — Ashkenazi Jews.

In the U.S. Jews stayed in the liberal camp not just out of conviction but also from fear of the Christian right. When fundamentalism reared its head in American politics, they feared that anti-Semitism would not be far behind. And, as the anti-communism of the McCarthy era targeted the Jewish intellectual establishment, their dependence on Democrats only increased.

It came as a shock to America´s Jews that first Nixon, then Reagan, and finally Bush-43 emerged as Israel´s strongest supporters. (The tepid backing Bush-41 gave the Jewish state was more in line with what they expected from the GOP). And it came as a total shock when the religious right became Israel´s strongest backer based on its biblical conviction that God had promised the Holy Land to the Jewish people.

But, by then, religion and even Israel had weakened their holds on American Jewish hearts. They attended religious services less than half as frequently as establishment Protestants and only one-third as often as Catholics or Evangelicals. Most Jews, Podhoretz notes, attended synagogue “four times a year” on the high holy days.

Meanwhile, in Israel, the socialist Ashkenazi-based Labor Party (led by Shimon Peres) fell to the campaigns of Menachem Begin and Bibi Netanyahu. Both had as their base the Sephardic Jews who came, not from Europe, but from Africa or the Middle East. They had no heritage of socialism, much less Marxism and had a healthy disrespect for their long term neighbors in the Arab world. To American Jews, they looked racist and embarrassed them in front of their liberal friends. When Obama accuses Netanyahu of “intransigence”, he echoes what liberal Jews themselves often think of the Israeli right-wing.

But Podhoretz´ book, written before Obama manifested such an anti-Israel bent, leaves unanswered the question of whether the pro-Palestinian bias of the current administration, not to mention its war on prosperity, will drive Jews away from their liberal moorings. The answer probably lies more with events than within Jewish thinking. As it becomes apparent that Israel faces a holocaust-like threat from Iranian nuclear weapons and the disastrous results of Obama´s socialist project become evident, Jews will likely gradually wean themselves away from the liberal Democratic Party. As it becomes more anti-Israel and anti-wealth, the Party will leave the Jews before the Jews realize it has left and themselves leave the party.

The Truth about The Gaza Flotilla and the Gaza Blockade

2010-06-03T00:24:00.000-07:00

If you want the facts, and not the media spin, about what really happened with the Gaza Flotilla then you should go to these two sites:

1) UPDATED FACTS: The Gaza Flotilla and the Maritime Blockade of Gaza

2) Glenn Beck Web Exclusive on the Flotilla

Will The Media Report Flotilla Disaster Accurately And Fairly?

2010-05-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

Will the media report accurately and fairly as anti-Israel activists violently resist an IDF naval boarding with tragic results?

In the early hours of Monday 31 May, Israeli naval commandos boarded a flotilla of vessels heading for Gaza. What happened next has created a major media storm as, according to reports, over a dozen anti-Israel activists have died and many more injured, including Israeli soldiers.

Israel's critics have been quick to condemn the incident, using it to inflame anti-Israel sentiment. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has already termed what is undoubtedly a serious incident as a "massacre". Will this be the latest in a long list of incidents that have been distorted and misrepresented to cause Israel the maximum amount of damage to its image?

Connected to Terror: Who is Behind the Flotilla?

The organizations and passengers behind the Gaza flotilla have been variously described as "peace activists" and "humanitarian organizations". This could not be further from the truth. The primary objective of this flotilla was not to deliver aid packages to Gaza but to spread anti-Israel propaganda in cooperation with Gaza's Hamas rulers.

See here and here for detailed information on the IHH.

Amongst the other organizations involved in the flotilla is the International Solidarity Movement. The ISM has a shameful record of placing foreign nationals in danger through encouraging 'direct action', which resulted in the death of American citizen Rachel Corrie. In 2003, ISM's extreme ideology was underscored when terrorists, originating from the UK, used ISM as a cover to attack Mike's Place bar in Tel Aviv, murdering three people. More recently, ISM has been a leading force in the violent protests against the security barrier at Ni'lin, while an ISM activist has been jailed in the US, charged with "giving about $20,000 to a group he knew supported Hamas."

An Al-Jazeera report from May 28, translated by MEMRI, shows activists on board before departing for Gaza, chanting Intifada songs aimed at Jews and praising martyrdom. Chants include "Intifada, intifada, intifada! Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews! The army of Mohammed will return!" relating to a seventh century massacre of Jews in Khaybar by early Muslims.

"Peace" Activists Used Deadly Violence

Despite claims that the activists on board were only prepared to resist the IDF peacefully, the reality was quite the opposite. Upon boarding the Marmara, owned and operated by the extremist IHH, Israeli naval personnel were attacked by activists who had prepared themselves with weapons including knives and clubs. This, despite the following statement from a Free Gaza spokesperson:

We were not going to pose any violent resistance. The only resistance that there might be would be passive resistance such as physically blocking the steering room, or blocking the engine room downstairs, so that they couldn't get taken over. But that was just symbolic resistance.

Is the clip below showing an IDF soldier being attacked with a crowbar "symbolic resistance"?

In addition, IDF forces apprehended two activists holding pistols. The activists took these pistols from IDF forces and apparently opened fire on the soldiers as evident by the empty pistol magazines. This goes some way to explaining the number of casualties as live fire was exchanged as IDF forces found themselves under severe threat as evidenced by the number of injured Israeli soldiers and the types of injuries. One soldier suffered a serious head injury, two others were injured by gunshots and one more was stabbed.

Click here to see Israeli TV footage of Israeli soldiers under attack.

Propaganda Not Humanitarianism

If there was any doubt that these organizations were unconcerned with universal human rights, this was confirmed by the rejection of a request from the family of Gilad Shalit for activists to pressure Hamas to allow international organizations to bring letters and food packages to the kidnapped soldier in exchange for the family's support for the international expedition's attempt to dock in Gaza.

In fact, Israel offered to transfer the supplies on the flotilla to Gaza from Ashdod port through official channels, an offer that was rejected in favor of confrontation on the part of the anti-Israel activists. As flotilla organizer Greta Berlin stated: "this mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it's about breaking Israel's siege."

The flotilla was clearly warned by the Israeli Navy in advance of the boarding and the offer repeated by the IDF.

A Legitimate and Legal Operation

IMRA asked Hebrew University international law expert Dr. Robbie Sabel about the legality of the IDF action in international waters.

Dr. Sabel explained that a state, in a time of conflict, can impose an embargo, and while it cannot carry out embargo activities in the territorial waters of a third party, it can carry out embargo activities in international waters.

Within this framework it is legal to detain a civilian vessel trying to break an embargo and if in the course of detaining the vessel, force is used against the forces carrying out the detention then that force has every right to act in self defense.

Dr. Sabel noted that there is a long history of embargo activities in international waters.

Indeed, according to the San Remo Manual that governs international humanitarian law, it is permissible under rule 67(a) to attack neutral vessels on the high seas when the vessels "are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture."

Will the Media Report Fairly?

The initial pictures and reports of this incident (supplied mainly by the less than objective al-Jazeera and Turkish media) do not paint Israel in a positive light, not helped by the fluidity of the situation and conflicting information.

It is the duty of the international media to report fairly and accurately. We have been here before, from incidents ranging from the al-Dura affair, the Jenin "massacre" and many other libels perpetrated by a media all too willing to take the side of those who seek to harm Israel.

We hope that the media will not repeat its past mistakes. While a clearer picture of today's events may eventually emerge, the damage has already been done in the first few hours of reporting. Retractions and corrections will do little to soften the blow.

Will the media take at face value the statements and anti-Israel propaganda of groups who were committed to causing an incident of this nature? Will the media join in the automatic knee-jerk anti-Israel reaction that is all too often the norm?

Keep an eye on your local media to ensure that the facts behind this tragic incident are not drowned by a wave of anti-Israel sentiment.

(From Honest Reporting)

Update:

The “Gaza Flotilla” – Terrorism or Civil-Disobedience?

A must watch video: "peaceful" activists on the Gaza flotilla - Close-up Footage

Demonstrators Use Violence Against Navy Soldiers Boarding Ship
MEMRI-TV - Activists On Board Chant Songs of Martyrdom at Departure

A Rally to Protest the LA City Council Boycott of Arizona

2010-05-22T15:27:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday morning, May 25th, at 8:45am on the south lawn of the LA City Hall, there will be a rally to protest the foolish action of the Los Angeles City Council to boycott a neighboring state, Arizona.

The LA City Council members, pandering to their Latino voters, decided to oppose the anti-illegal immigration law passed by the good people of the State of Arizona by cutting off any purchases of goods or services from Arizona. One city councilman, Paul Koretz likened the law — and other Arizona laws such as one that curbs high school ethnic studies programs — to the beginnings of Nazi Germany when Jews were singled out for persecution.

"We can't let this advance any further," said Koretz, who said he lost relatives in the Holocaust. "It is absolutely dangerous."

Paul Koretz is a blithering fool to use that kind of hyperbole relating to what is going on in Arizona, particularly when he himself lost relatives in the Holocaust. The quality of leadership in our current City Council, with a few exceptions, is deplorable.

Join us on Tuesday, May 25th at 8:45am on the South Lawn of the Los Angeles City Hall and listen to Los Angeles Community Leaders give their comments on the foolishness of the LA City Council's actions in this boycott.

In the following photo, the red "X" is where we will meet. The blue "P" is the location of the nearest parking structure.

Keep Israel Safe

2010-05-19T23:47:00.001-07:00

The Left's Obesity Obsession

2010-05-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

Sultan Knish has a very perceptive article on why the Left has an obesity obsession.

First of all, a War on Obesity justifies all sorts of micromanagement of the agricultural and food production sectors. Blaming America's food production sector for a public health problem allows them to play the same game with every company from Kraft to Heinz to General Mills to PepsiCo that they previously have with tobacco companies. To understand why the left would want to do this, you only need to look at the USSR in the past or Venezuela in the present, both of which imposed price controls over food products and tight control over farming. Controlling food production and distribution is essential to controlling the population. This brings us right back to Hydraulic Despotism or the Water Empire. If you can seize control over a major resource that the population needs to survive, you also control the population.

[...]

Secondly, a staple of the left's exercise of power is to "shame" the public for their abuse of resources. This is common in every Communist countries that run on the illusion of collective economies and constantly berate some group for taking more than "their fair share".

The Obesity Obsession has that same agenda, to suggest that a group of people are consuming more than their fair share and depriving others of food. Since the left hasn't managed to reduce American food production to a state of permanent food shortages yet, by "others" they mean other countries. Thinking globally and acting locally to them, means that everyone locally should eat less, so that starving children in Africa will have more. This obviously doesn't work as anyone with a grain of sense would know, but to the left it's a moral formula, a bit of pious economic flotsam which insists that Western greed for resources is the reason children are starving in Africa today. (Why children were starving in Africa for the entire history of the continent is a topic best not raised in their presence.)

[...]

Thirdly, the Obesity Obsession is class warfare. In the code of the leftist elite, obese means lower class. If you look at the comedy of the left, being overweight is associated with owning guns and attending church. It's part of their code for "White Trash" and such codes reveal much more about those who formulate them, than about their targets.

These are but brief excerpts in an article that is worth reading in full.

The Sultan concludes:

America does not have an obesity problem. It has a left wing problem. The problem of the left wing is the age old one of an arrogant self-proclaimed elite that seeks power over the rest of the country for their own benefit. Their Obesity Obsession combines their lust for power over business and individuals, their desire to control the minds of men and their own revealing class arrogance when it comes to those same people they wish to control.

The obesity problem that we do have does not involve food, but government. Specifically liberalism's over-indulgence in regulatory bodies and bureaucracies to control us. The grossly expanded national budget, the corpulent deficits, the plump departments wallowing in insane budget requests, the greasy pork and oily union giveaways is America's real obesity problem. And it can only be solved by going on a liberal diet, not a diet in which government spends money liberally, which is what's on the current administration menu. But a diet in which we cut out the liberalism, and dramatically cut back on the fat. Results guaranteed in 365 days or your money back.

Read the whole article.

A Message for Shavuot from my friend, Mara

2010-05-18T00:51:00.000-07:00

This is a Shavuot message written by my friend, Mara:

חג שבועות שמח

All the news is dire; it always is. At pesach, we say....

"eh-la sheb'chol dor v'dor aleinu l'cha-to-teinu..."

in every generation, they rise up to destroy us....

Most American Jews take this as a quaint metaphor, part of the Haggada ritual...

NOT ANYMORE.

Tonight at sundown begins the observance of Shavuot, seven weeks following the Exodus, B'nei Yisrael gathers at the foot of Mt. Sinai to await -- what...?

Our Tradition teaches us that we were all there -- all generations, before and after -- and we fell asleep!

At this awesome time, we almost blew it -- which is why it has become customary to stay up all night learning Torah....no falling asleep now, chevra!

THIS IS THE TIME TO BE VIGILANT.

Our Tradition also teaches us that Torah has been, is and will be eternal. It existed before the universe...It existed before time....It existed before human beings...It existed within HASHEM.

That is what we awaited at Mt. Sinai. We awaited -- the Present, which is the Presence. That is the meaning of "MATAN TORAH."

And He gave it to us -- to you and to me, to our ancestors and to our descendants -- as a roadmap for Life.

It is, indeed, "MATAN" -- The Gift of All Gifts.

And it is up to each and every one of us to accept this precious present and vow...

NOT IN THIS GENERATION WILL THEY DESTROY US!

May we merit HASHEM's intervention in these days...in these times....

Chag Shavuot Sameach!

Mara

Watch Eric Holder Squirm Because He Can't Say "Radical Islam"

2010-05-13T19:20:00.000-07:00

What a jerk! He has been so brainwashed by his bosses not to say "Radical Islam" that he can't get it out. How can you protect against a force you can't say the name of?

The truth is, that it is not "radical" Islam. It is the true Islam that promotes violent jihad. Holder seems to erroneously think that jihad is practiced by those who have "distorted" the religion. Obviously he has never read the Qur'an just as he never read the Arizona law.

U.S. posts 19th straight monthly budget deficit

2010-05-13T01:00:00.000-07:00

The United States posted an $82.69 billion deficit in April, nearly four times the $20.91 billion shortfall registered in April 2009 and the largest on record for that month, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

It was more than twice the $40-billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue.
Department officials said that in prior years, there was a surplus during April in 43 out of the past 56 years.

The government has now posted 19 consecutive monthly budget deficits, the longest string of shortfalls on record.

For the first seven months of fiscal 2010, which ends September 30, the cumulative budget deficit totals $799.68 billion, down slightly from $802.3 billion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009.

Outlays during April rose to $327.96 billion from $218.75 billion in March and were up from $287.11 billion in April 2009. It was a record level of outlays for an April.
Department officials noted there were five Fridays in April this year, which helped account for higher outlays since most tax refunds are issued on that day.

But for the first seven months of the fiscal year, outlays fell to $1.99 trillion from $2.06 trillion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009, partly because of repayments by banks of bailout funds they received during the financial crisis.

Receipts in April -- mostly from income taxes -- were $245.27 billion, up from $153.36 billion in March but lower than the $266.21 billion taken in during April 2009.

Receipts from individuals, who faced an April 15 filing deadline for paying 2009 taxes, fell to $107.31 billion from $137.67 billion in April 2009.

The U.S. full-year deficit this year is projected at $1.5 trillion on top of a $1.4 trillion shortfall last year.

White House budget director Peter Orszag told Reuters Insider in an interview on Wednesday that the United States must tackle its deficits quickly to avoid the kind of debt crisis that hit Greece.

From Reuters

Yom Yerushalayim - Jerusalem Day

2010-05-12T16:11:00.000-07:00

The Jewish and Christian holy days of Passover and Easter have passed; Shavuot and Pentecost are coming.

In between, the 28th of Iyar-corresponding to 7 June 1967 and 12 May 2010 - marks the unification of Jerusalem in the hands of the State of Israel.

The city has been occupied over time by the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Ottoman and British Empires; occupied occasionally by Egyptians, Crusaders, Mamluks and Jordanians.

But the holidays remind us that Jerusalem has, from the time of the Bible, been the capital of the Jewish people and of no other people.

In 1947, the UN General Assembly partitioned the 23 percent of the British Mandate for Palestine that remained after the creation of the Kingdom of Transjordan into separate Palestinian Arab and Palestinian Jewish sectors, planning to create two new states.

They took a pass on Jerusalem - voting to make it and Bethlehem corpus separatum, an area legally separate from its environs.

"In view of its association with three world religions" it would be "accorded special and separate treatment from the rest of Palestine and should be placed under effective United Nations control."

We will never know what "effective UN control" would have looked like.

In May 1948, the Jordanian Legion entered the UN zone, besieged the Jewish residents and annexed the eastern side of the city, which was an ancient Jewish residential area. Did you ever wonder why it is called "Arab East Jerusalem"? It is because they expelled the Jews who were living there and worked hard to erase the historic Jewish connection from the city. They created a wall separating East Jerusalem from the rest of Jerusalem.

In the Ceasefire Agreement of 1949, Jordan promised to appoint a committee to discuss free access of Jews to the holy sites including (but not limited to) the Western Wall and the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. It never happened. Instead, Jordan cut roads through the cemetery and used the tombstones for paving stones and to create latrines in Jordanian army camps. More than 50 synagogues, libraries and Jewish schools were deliberately destroyed or defaced. The Cave of Shimon the Just was used as a horse stable.

Appeals to the UN for "effective control" were not effective.

The wall that split Jerusalem, cutting Jews - not only Israelis - off from their heritage, was as effective as the Berlin Wall. In 1967, after having been warned by Israel, the King of Jordan miscalculated, shelling the west side of the city from behind the UN barrier. In response, Israel responded by making Jerusalem whole again.

It is right and crucial that unified Jerusalem be the capital of the modern State of Israel, precisely because the city holds sites holy to people of the Jewish, Christian and, much later, the Muslim faiths.

Only when the State of Israel has been the guardian of the unified city has it been - as the UN said it intended - a city open to all faiths.

Today, the mosques are controlled by the Waqf, the Islamic religious society. Churches are maintained by various Christian denominations. The Western Wall, the Mount of Olives cemetery and the restored Hurva Synagogue are in Jewish hands. The Government of Israel ensures open access - and only the Government of Israel can be relied on to ensure open access to the Jewish people.

Why, we ask, does the Obama Administration insist that Israel find a way for Jerusalem to serve as the capital of the Palestinian Arabs when it has never been an Arab political or religious seat? What right do the Palestinian Arabs have to occupy Jerusalem as its capital? What is the historical basis of that request?

Religious Muslims should be thankful the Jewish people regard the Muslim right to access to Muslim holy places as an obligation of the State of Israel - when no similar right accrued to the Jews under Jordanian occupation of Jerusalem.

And the United States should regard the reunification of Jerusalem under a tolerant and democratic government to be praiseworthy. There is no greater guaranty of the right of access to all the holy places for all faiths than having the Government of Israel responsible for keeping Jerusalem united and open.

Teacher Says Student Drawing of American Flag is "Offensive"

2010-05-10T17:06:00.000-07:00

A California teacher banned a student’s US flag picture that she drew for art class.
She said the US flag picture with “God Bless America” written on it was offensive. The same teacher praised a picture of Obama drawn by a different student in the class.

How did we get to the point where a teacher considers a painting of the American Flag offensive? I consider the teacher offensive!

Via Fox News

Obama Loses Almost One-Half Of His U.S. Jewish Support

2010-05-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

United States President Barack Obama has lost nearly half of his support among American Jews, a poll by the McLaughlin Group has shown.

The US Jews polled were asked whether they would: (a) vote to re-elect Obama, or (b) consider voting for someone else. 42% said they would vote for Obama and 46%, a plurality, preferred the second answer. 12% said they did not know or refused to answer.

In the Presidential elections of 2008, 78% of Jewish voters, or close to 8 out of 10, chose Obama. The McLaughlin poll held nearly 18 months later, in April 2010, appears to show that support down to around 4 out of 10.

The poll showed that key voter segments including Orthodox/Hassidic voters, Conservative voters, voters who have friends and family in Israel and those who have been to Israel, are all more likely to consider voting for someone other than Obama.

Among Orthodox/Hassidic voters, 69% marked 'someone else' vs. 17% who marked 're-elect.' Among Conservative-affiliated voters the proportion was 50% to 38%. Among Reform Jews, a slim majority of 52% still supported Obama while 36% indicated they would consider someone else. Among Jews with family in Israel and those who had been to Israel, about 50% said they would consider someone else, while 41%-42% supported Obama.

Fifty percent of the Jewish voters polled said they approved of the job Obama is doing handling US relations with Israel. Thirty-nine percent said they disapproved. “This rating is not good for a group of voters who are 59% Democratic to only 16% Republican,” the poll's analysis noted.

A majority of 52% said they disapproved of the idea of the Obama Administration supporting a plan to recognize a Palestinian state within two years. 62% said that if given a state, “the Palestinians would continue their campaign of terror to destroy Israel.” Only 19% thought they would live peacefully with Israel.

How to Fix California

2010-04-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

Victor Davis Hanson has written a terrific essay on preserving what was once good in California. As always, Victor Davis Hanson is a wonderful read, and I highly recommend you read the entire short article.

In the article he comes up with a solution as to how to save California in a single paragraph - not 2,000 pages. Hopefully without discouraging you from reading the entire essay, here is his very clear, excellent solution:

All of which raises the question: how would we return to sanity in California, a state as naturally beautiful and endowed and developed by our ancestors as it has been sucked dry by our parasitic generation? The medicine would be harder than the malady, and I just cannot see it happening, as much as I love the state, admire many of its citizens, and see glimmers of hope in the most unlikely places every day.

After all, in no particular order, we would have to close the borders; adopt English immersion in our schools; give up on the salad bowl and return to the melting pot; assimilate, intermarry, and integrate legal immigrants; curb entitlements and use the money to fix infrastructure like roads, bridges, airports, trains, etc.; build 4-5 new dams to store water in wet years; update the canal system; return to old policies barring public employee unions; redo pension contracts; cut about 50,000 from the public employee roles; lower income taxes from 10% to 5% to attract businesses back; cut sales taxes to 7%; curb regulations to allow firms to stay; override court orders now curbing cost-saving options in our prisons by systematic legislation; start creating material wealth from our forests; tap more oil, timber, natural gas, and minerals that we have in abundance; deliver water to the farmland we have; build 3-4 nuclear power plants on the coast; adopt a traditional curriculum in our schools; insist on merit pay for teachers; abolish tenure; encourage not oppose more charter schools, vouchers, and home schooling; give tax breaks to private trade and business schools; reinstitute admission requirements and selectivity at the state university system; take unregistered cars off the road; make UC professors teach a class or two more each year; abolish all racial quotas and preferences in reality rather than in name; build a new all weather east-west state freeway over the Sierra; and on and on.

While he admits that implementing the solution will not be easy, let us see if we can elect some state legislators and governors who would have the foresight and courage to undertake to restore California using VDH's remedy. If we want to preserve this once golden state, it is what we must do.

How Public-Sector Unions Broke California

2010-04-18T22:55:00.000-07:00

There is a very good article on how the public-sector unions in California have raped the state by Steven Malanga on City Journal. It explains how the unions, using their ability to elect politicians who will support their requests have negotiated contracts that have resulted in unreasonable and unsustainable retirement benefits for their members.

The ability of public-sector unions to control the legislature have caused much of the fiscal problems in California. The unions’ political triumphs have molded a California in which government workers thrive at the expense of a struggling private sector. The state’s public school teachers are the highest-paid in the nation. Its prison guards can easily earn six-figure salaries. State workers routinely retire at 55 with pensions higher than their base pay for most of their working life. Meanwhile, what was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation’s and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations. This toxic combination—high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes—has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state.

This is an important factor in the problems of California.

How public employees became members of the elite class in a declining California offers a cautionary tale to the rest of the country, where the same process is happening in slower motion. The story starts half a century ago, when California public workers won bargaining rights and quickly learned how to elect their own bosses—that is, sympathetic politicians who would grant them outsize pay and benefits in exchange for their support. Over time, the unions have turned the state’s politics completely in their favor. The result: unaffordable benefits for civil servants; fiscal chaos in Sacramento and in cities and towns across the state; and angry taxpayers finally confronting the unionized masters of California’s unsustainable government.

The CTA is one of the unions that has acquired enormous power and uses it for their benefit, and to the detriment of the citizens of California.

Consider the California Teachers Association. Much of the CTA’s clout derives from the fact that, like all government unions, it can help elect the very politicians who negotiate and approve its members’ salaries and benefits. Soon after Proposition 13 became law, the union launched a coordinated statewide effort to support friendly candidates in school-board races, in which turnout is frequently low and special interests can have a disproportionate influence. In often bitter campaigns, union-backed candidates began sweeping out independent board members. By 1987, even conservative-leaning Orange County saw 83 percent of board seats up for grabs going to union-backed candidates. The resulting change in school-board composition made the boards close allies of the CTA.

The SEIU is another.

The SEIU’s rise in California illustrates again how modern labor’s biggest victories take place in back rooms, not on picket lines. In the late 1980s, the SEIU began eyeing a big jackpot: tens of thousands of home health-care workers being paid by California’s county-run Medicaid programs. The SEIU initiated a long legal effort to have those workers, who were independent contractors, declared government employees. When the courts finally agreed, the union went about organizing them—an easy task because governments rarely contest organizing campaigns, not wanting to seem anti-worker. The SEIU’s biggest victory was winning representation for 74,000 home health-care workers in Los Angeles County, the largest single organizing drive since the United Auto Workers unionized General Motors in 1937. Taxpayers paid a steep price: home health-care costs became the fastest-growing part of the Los Angeles County budget after the SEIU bargained for higher wages and benefits for these new recruits. The SEIU also organized home health-care workers in several other counties, reaching a whopping statewide total of 130,000 new members.

The SEIU’s California numbers have given it extraordinary resources to pour into political campaigns. The union’s major locals contributed a hefty $20 million in 2005 to defeat a series of initiatives to cap government growth and rein in union power. The SEIU has also spent millions over the years on initiatives to increase taxes, sometimes failing but on other occasions succeeding, as with a 2004 measure to impose a millionaires’ tax to finance more mental-health spending. With an overflowing war chest and hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers, the SEIU has been instrumental in getting local governments to pass living-wage laws in several California cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. And the union has also used its muscle in campaigns largely out of the public eye, as in 2003, when it pressured the board of CalPERS, the giant California public-employee pension fund, to stop investing in companies that outsourced government jobs to private contractors.

The writer concludes:

It will take an enormous effort to roll back decades of political and economic gains by government unions. But the status quo is unsustainable. And at long last, Californians are beginning to understand the connection between that status quo and the corruption at the heart of their politics.

This is important information. Please read the whole article.

United States - 1934

2010-04-18T09:10:00.000-07:00

Those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it. - George Santayana

Cartoon from the Chicago Tribune in 1934:

(Click on image to enlarge it)

It didn't work so well then, what makes anyone think it will work now?

We Will Not Be Saying "Thank You", Mr. President

2010-04-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

President Obama (February 4, 2009):

"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."

In the fifteen months of his presidency, President Obama has enacted into law, 25 tax increases totaling more than $670 billion, at least 14 of the taxes were violations of the Obama’s pledge not to raise any kind of taxes on Americans earning less than $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples.

The President's list of violations include:

* Tobacco tax increase and expanded enforcement authority*

* New tax on individuals who do not purchase government‐approved health insurance

* A 40% excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans

* A new "medicine cabinet tax" on over-the-counter purchases from HSAs, FSAs, and HRAs increasing the non-medical early withdrawal HSA penalty from 10 to 20 percent

* A "special-needs kids" tax (capping FSA contributions at $2500)

* An increase in the top Medicare payroll tax rate from 2.9 to 3.8 percent (in so doing raising the top marginal tax rate on labor from 37.9 to 43.4 percent)

* A hike in the capital gains rate from 15 to 23.8 percent

* A hike in the dividends tax rate from 15 to 43.4 percent

* A hike in the "other" investment tax rate from 35 to 43.4 percent

* An increase in the "reduction of the deduction" for medical expenses from 7.5 to 10 percent of AGI

* New annual taxes on health insurance companies, innovator drug companies, and medical device manufacturers

* A 10% excise tax for tanning salon sessions eliminating the deduction for employer-provided retiree Rx coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D

* Creating the "economic substance doctrine," which allows the IRS to disallow perfectly-legal tax deductions it deems are only being used to reduce tax liabilities

* Requiring 1099-MISC information reporting for small business payments to corporations, increasing compliance burdens for small employers

Yesterday the President showed his typical arrogance and disregard for the public as he "amused" himself at the expense of the tax party protesters:

"In all, we passed 25 different tax cuts last year. And one thing we haven't done is raise income taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year -- another promise that we kept," he told supporters at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. "So I've been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies about taxes. You would think they would be saying thank you."

Sorry, Mr. Obama, we will not thank you for raising our taxes and breaking your pledge not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000. We will not thank you for further deepening the financial crisis by raising taxes in the midst of a severe recession. We will not thank you for creating the largest debt obligations ever in the history of the United States. We will not thank you for shoving a multi-trillion dollar healthcare insurance bill burden on American taxpayers when clearly a super-majority of Americans did not want it.

No thanks coming from here, Mr. Obama. You will have to look elsewhere for thanks.

h/t Yid with Lid

Assemblyman Mike Feuer Blocks Resolution To Honor Boy Scouts

2010-04-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

"On my honor I will do my best
to do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
to help other people at all times;
to keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight."

I really have difficulty understanding Democrats, especially Democrats like Mike Feuer, member of the California State Assembly from the 42nd Assembly District (West Hollywood, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, West LA, Studio City).

Everyone understands the good that the Boy Scouts do, and have been doing for 100 years. I was a boy scout. It was a valuable experience for me in my formative years. It taught me many things. One thing I learned was how to be responsible for myself. Another was that you had to be honorable as well as moral. Effectively, how to be an adult. It was a healthy and positive experience for me, as it was for tens of thousands of boys who went through the scouting movement for the past 100 years.

A resolution was presented in the California Assembly Judiciary Committee this week to honor the Boy Scouts of America for their nearly 100 years of service to the country. Committee Chairman Mike Feuer said that he opposed the resolution because "gays are not allowed to serve as troop leaders."

Does Mike Feuer not understand that one of the elements of scouting is that young boys go on overnight camping trips with their troop leaders and scoutmasters. Some parents of young boys would be reluctant to send their son on an overnight camping trip if they knew the troop leader or scoutmaster was gay. Yes, I know that few gay men are pedophiles, but some are. Yes, I know that some heterosexual males are also pedophiles. However, it is a matter of perception. Parents will feel concerned that their child might be a victim of sexual abuse.

So, Michael Feuer got the other Democrats on the committee to kill the resolution honoring this fine service organization. The resolution lost on straight party line vote. All Democrats voted to kill the resolution. All Republicans supported it.

The Democrats on the committee who voted against the resolution are Mike Feuer, Julia Brownley, Noreen Evans, Dave Jones,Ted Lieu, William Monning and Pedro Nava. Republicans on the committee supporting the resolution were Van Tran, Curt Hagman and Steve Knight.

Objectives of the Boy Scouts (from their web site):

The Boy Scouts of America is one of the nation's largest and most prominent values-based youth development organizations. The BSA provides a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and develops personal fitness.

For nearly a century, the BSA has helped build the future leaders of this country by combining educational activities and lifelong values with fun. The Boy Scouts of America believes — and, through nearly a century of experience, knows — that helping youth is a key to building a more conscientious, responsible, and productive society.

Happy Anniversary To Us

2010-04-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

Well, loyal readers, it was exactly five years ago that I wrote the first post at Bear to the Right. I actually wrote three posts on that first day.

I am reposting them again:
__________________________________

Welcome to "Bear to the Right"

This is a new blog where I, and occasional guests, will expound on the meaning of life. Comments will not appear on a regular basis as I have a life to attend to outside of blogging. Check back for further updates.

Since when do you telegraph your next move?

Can someone explain to me why Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made the comment that Iran has nothing to fear from Israel since Israel does not intend to attack Iran's nuclear capability?

Wouldn't the world be a lot safer if Iran was wondering what move Israel was going to make, and when?

Just a thought.

Boxer's "rare" opposition

Barbara Boxer, liberal Democratic Senator from California, claims her opposition to John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for the post of Ambassador to the United Nations, is rare.

Let's see, in addition to opposing the Bolton appointment to the UN, she has opposed the appointment of Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State, John Bolton as Under-Secretary of State, John Ashcroft for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez for Attorney General, Theodore Olson for Solicitor General, Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior and Michael Leavitt for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Were there any of President Bush's significant appointments that she supported?

Rare, indeed.
__________________________________

So, as you can see, here we are five years later, and we are still writing about the same topics.

Happy Anniversary to us.

Obama To Take Hardline On US Climate Strategy

2010-04-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

The Guardian reports that a document was inadvertently left on a hotel computer in Europe which spells out the Obama Administration policy with regard to climate controls.

A document accidentally left on a European hotel computer and passed to the Guardian reveals the US government's increasingly controversial strategy in the global UN climate talks.

Titled Strategic communications objectives and dated 11 March 2010, it outlines the key messages that the Obama administration wants to convey to its critics and to the world media in the run-up to the vital UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico in November. (You can read the document text below).

Top of the list of objectives is to: "Reinforce the perception that the US is constructively engaged in UN negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change." It also talks of "managing expectations" of the outcome of the Cancun meeting and bypassing traditional media outlets by using podcasts and "intimate meetings" with the chief US negotiator to disarm the US's harsher critics.

But the key phrase is in paragraph three where the author writes: "Create a clear understanding of the CA's [Copenhagen accord's] standing and the importance of operationalising ALL elements."

This is the clearest signal that the US will refuse to negotiate on separate elements of the controversial accord, but intends to push it through the UN process as a single "take it or leave it" text. The accord is the last-minute agreement reached at the chaotic Copenhagen summit in December. Over 110 countries are now "associated" with the accord but it has not been adopted by the 192-nation UN climate convention. The US has denied aid to some countries that do not support the accord.

The "take it or leave it" approach divided countries in Bonn this weekend and alienated most developing countries including China, India and Brazil who want to take parts of the accord to include in the formal UN negotiations. They say the accord has no legal standing and should not be used as the basis of the final legally binding agreement because it is not ambitious enough. It lacks any specific cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and sets a temperature rise limit of 2C, which critics say is too high to prevent serious harm to Africa and other parts of the world.

Last night Jonathan Pershing, lead US negotiator at the Bonn talks, said he "had no knowledge" of the document. But he endorsed one of its key messages. "We are not prepared to see a process go forward in which certain elements are cherry-picked. That was not the agreement we reached in Copenhagen," he said.

Read the full text of the leaked document.

Obama Eradicates Islamic Terrorism - From NSA Documents Only

2010-04-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

From the Middle East Forum:The Obama administration has just announced its intent to ban all words that allude to Islam from important national security documents. Put differently, the Obama administration has just announced its intent to ban all knowledge and context necessary to confront and defeat radical Islam (news much welcomed by Islamist organizations like CAIR). While this move may reflect a naively therapeutic administration — an Obama advisor once suggested that Winnie the Pooh should inform U.S foreign policy — that Obama, the one U.S. president who best knows that politically correct niceties will have no effect on the Muslim world is enforcing this ban, is further troubling.

An Associated Press report has the disturbing details:

President Barack Obama's advisers plan to remove terms such as "Islamic radicalism" from a document outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism, counterterrorism officials say.

First off, how, exactly, does the use of terms such as "Islamic radicalism" indicate that the U.S. views "Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism"? It is the height of oversensitivity to think that the so-called "Muslim street" can be antagonized by accurate words in technical U.S. documents — documents they don't know or care about — especially since the Arabic media itself often employs such terms. Surely we can use "Islamic radicalism" to define, well, Islamic radicals, without simultaneously viewing all Muslims "through the lens of terrorism"? Just as surely as we can use words like "Nazism" to define white supremacists, without viewing all white nations through the lens of racism?

The AP report continues:

Obama's speechwriters have taken inspiration from an unlikely source: former President Ronald Reagan. Visiting communist China in 1984, Reagan spoke at Fudan University in Shanghai about education, space exploration and scientific research. He discussed freedom and liberty. He never mentioned communism or democracy.

The analogy is flawed. For starters, in Reagan's era, the Soviet Union, not China, was America's prime antagonist — just as today, Islamic radicals, not Muslims, are America's prime enemy. Moreover, unlike Obama, who would have the U.S. bend over backwards to appease Muslim nations— or, in his case, just bend over — Reagan regularly lambasted the Soviet Union, dubbing it the "evil empire." Finally, the Chinese never attacked America, unlike Islamic radicals, who not only have attacked it, but daily promise it death and destruction — all in the name of Islam.

The ultimate problem in the White House's new "words-policy," however, is reflected in this excerpt from the report:

The change [i.e., linguistic obfuscation] would be a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. It currently states, "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century."

Read the whole article.

Israel Support Stronger By Republicans Than Democrats

2010-04-11T19:20:00.000-07:00

Jeff Jacoby, in an article in the Boston Globe, analyzes the result of a Gallop poll:

But look at the disparity that emerges when those results are sorted by party affiliation. While support for Israel vs. the Palestinians has climbed to a stratospheric 85 percent among Republicans, the comparable figure for Democrats is an anemic 48 percent. (It was 60 percent for independents.) And behind Israel's "Top 5" favorability rating lies a gaping partisan rift: 80 percent of Republicans -- but just 53 percent Democrats -- have positive feelings about the world's only Jewish country.

Similarly, it is true that 333 US House members, a hefty bipartisan majority, endorsed the robustly pro-Israel Hoyer-Cantor letter to Hillary Clinton. But there were only seven Republicans who declined to sign the letter, compared with 91 Democrats -- more than a third of the entire Democratic caucus. (Six Massachusetts Democrats were among the non-signers: John Olver, Richard Neal, John Tierney, Ed Markey, Michael Capuano, and Bill Delahunt.)

From Zogby International comes still more proof of the widening gulf between the major parties on the subject of Israel. In a poll commissioned by the Arab American Institute last month, respondents were asked whether Obama should "steer a middle course" in the Middle East -- code for not clearly supporting Israel. "There is a strong divide on this question," Zogby reported, "with 73% of Democrats agreeing that the President should steer a middle course while only 24% of Republicans hold the same opinion."

Taken as a whole, America's identification with Israel is as stout as ever -- the "special relationship" between the two nations still runs deep. But the old political consensus that brought Republicans and Democrats together in support of the Middle East's only flourishing democracy is breaking down. Republican friendship for Israel has never been more rock-solid. Democratic friendship -- especially now, in the age of Obama -- is growing steadily less so.

I am not sure why Republicans are more supportive of Israel than Democrats, but the results of the surveys are interesting. Perhaps someone will come up with an explanation.

Read the whole article.

THE FACTS ABOUT THE “FREEDOM SLATE” FOR THE 42ND ASSEMBLY DISTRICT

2010-04-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

Most of you are unaware of the inner workings of the politics of The Republican Party of Los Angeles County (RPLAC). Some of you have signed up to show your support for the so-called “Freedom Slate” of the 42^nd Assembly District on Facebook or on their website, I thought you should be informed as to who they really are and what their real expressed intent is.

Leading the “Freedom Slate” is Rick Williams. Rick Williams is the attorney representing Robert Vaughn. Robert Vaughn is the person erroneously holding himself out as the “Chairman” of RPLAC, and is currently running a shadow group calling itself RPLAC. Robert Vaughn is also the person suing RPLAC and its Executive Board members personally through Rick Williams. The lawsuit seeks a gag order against the elected RPLAC board and also seeks to prohibit them from calling meetings of Republicans in Los Angeles.

That lawsuit is costing the LA County Republican Party tens of thousands of dollars, just to oppose the lawsuit by filing a motion to strike it as a “SLAPP” – strategic lawsuit against public participation. We understand they are now about to file a motion to enjoin the elected RPLAC Board from calling itself RPLAC, and possibly taking other action on behalf of the party. How many more tens of thousands of dollars of county party money will that cost?

That is money that should be going to support our Republican candidates to get elected in Los Angeles County, and instead is being used to pay lawyers to defend us in a frivolous lawsuit handled by Rick Williams. We haven’t even gotten to court yet, so the total cost will be much higher. How critical would those funds be today if we could spend them on candidate support, purchasing slate cards, helping with lawn signs and other candidate support, instead of spending those funds on defending lawsuits or getting frivolous suits thrown out?

You might be wondering how Robert Vaughn and Rick Williams got to know each other. Robert Vaughn was the Los Angeles Chairman of the Ron Paul for President campaign in 2008. Rick Williams also worked on the Ron Paul campaign. Rick Williams’ law partner is the former State Chairman of the California Democratic Party.

Many of you joined the Freedom Slate Facebook group or website because it is being promoted by David Hernandez. I like David, as I am sure you do. However, in this instance I believe David is seriously misguided, and has been unfortunately convinced to take up a cause which is not worthy of his long and commendable service to conservative causes in Los Angeles County.

It is my belief, along with many others, that the Freedom Slate is an attempt to gain control of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County through the back door. If they can get enough of the Robert Vaughn group on the 42^nd AD central committee, it will give them a foothold to take over the Party. This is not just conjecture. It is a stated objective on their web site.

Further, the so-called Freedom Slate is coming from a place of intolerance. Rick Williams has been heard to comment at RWF meetings he has spoken at, that it is time to remove the gays from the 42^nd AD central committee. Rick may be unaware that West Hollywood – home to many gays, Republican and Democrat – makes up a substantial part of the 42^nd Assembly District. Is he saying that West Hollywood should not have representation on the Central Committee? The following is a comment from an article Rick Williams wrote which appears on their website:

“Four of the incumbent candidates are special interest advocates-- interested in only the single issue of advancing the cause of gay marriage. Well . . . with all due respect to our four incumbent friends, the issue of gay marriage ranks pretty close to the bottom of the political priority list in a time where the state of California and the city of Los Angeles are bankrupt, and good hearted people are losing their jobs and their homes in an avalanche of economic collapse.”

This type of rhetoric is an attempt to disguise an intolerance for gay Republicans. I sit on the 42^nd AD central committee and work with its members. While there are a handful of gay members on the current central committee, I can tell you that the furthest thing from their mind is gay marriage. They are not single interest advocates. I have not heard the words gay marriage once during any central committee meeting in the past year and one half that this central committee has been active. These men are more interested in loss of liberty, economic concerns, employment concerns, getting Republicans elected, and preventing the enormous expansion of government. Hurtful rhetoric from “freedom slate” candidates reveals their true agenda.

Another misstatement from the “Freedom” slate concerns the motivations of other candidates:

“The other candidates running against the Freedomslate seem primarily interested in . . . running against the Freedomslate. These other candidates are the “status quo” offering favored by the existing old guard Party leadership. The old guard message goes something like this: Heaven forbid that the Freedomslate people might actually change something!”

Well, I am one of the other candidates running for the 42^nd Assembly District Central Committee on the “Take Back Los Angeles County” slate. I am not running against the Freedom Slate, nor are any of my fellow slate candidates. We are running for the office.

Now, do any of you who know me honestly believe that I am primarily interested in “…running against the Freedomslate?” Do any of you who support the Freedom Slate believe that I am not contributing an extraordinary part of my daily life to supporting conservative causes in Los Angeles County, or that I am not doing everything I can to get new young conservative candidates elected to office in Los Angeles County? So are many of the people running with me for the 42^nd AD central committee on the Take Back Los Angeles County slate.

Do any of you who know me believe that I am not interested in bringing in new leadership? I have been working my butt off (a political technical term) to bring in new leadership in the county party. I am supporting all kinds of new fresh faces who are running for office, or are running for central committee. I, along with the other candidates running on the Take Back Los Angeles County slate, support new leadership. What we don’t support is deception and strategy designed to do a back-door takeover.

You might be wondering who is on the Take Back Los Angeles County slate for the 42^nd Assembly District? Here they are:

GARY A. AMINOFF
Commercial Real Estate Broker
Current Positions:
First Vice Chairman, The Republican Party of Los Angeles County
President, San Fernando Valley Republican Club
Member, Executive Committee, California Republican Party
Member, 42^nd Assembly District Republican Central Committee
President, Chatsworth-Northridge Republican Assembly
Board of Directors, California Republican Assembly
Author/blogger at Bear to the Right
Prior Positions:
Co-Organizer of the February 27, 2009 and the April 15, 2009 Tea Party Rallys
West Los Angeles/San Fernando Valley Chair – McCain for President 2007-2008
Los Angeles County Chair – Rudy Guiliani for President – 2007
Los Angeles County Co-Chair, Schwarzenegger for Governor – 2006
Former Treasurer of the Republican Party of LA County 2006-2009
San Fernando Valley Chair, Bush-Cheney campaign 2004
San Fernando Valley Co-Chair, Grey Davis Recall - 2003
San Fernando Valley Co-Chair, Schwarzenegger for Governor 2003
(I won’t bother to list the rest)

BRAD TORGAN
Attorney and Small Business Owner
Member, California Republican Party Central Committee
Appointed Member, 42^nd Assembly District Central Committee
Vice President – Log Cabin Republicans, Los Angeles
Member, West Hollywood Historic Preservation Commission
Member, Congregation Kol Ami
Former General Counsel, California Department of Parks and Recreation

PAUL MORGAN FREDRIX
Attorney/Actor
Chairman, 42^nd AD Central Committee – 2005 to present
West Los Angeles/San Fernando Valley Precinct Chair – McCain Campaign 2008
Member, Precinct Committee, Republican Party of Los Angeles County
Paul has worked on every political campaign in Los Angeles County, and prior to that in Ohio.
He was the Registration Chair for the 12 Northeastern Counties of Ohio for the Republican Party prior to moving to California

NATE G. KRAUT
Attorney
Nate G. Kraut has been an elected member of the County Central Committee for the 42nd Assembly District since January 2007, serving as its Treasurer since January 2009.
Vice Chair of Los Angeles Lawyers for McCain – 2008.
Long standing member of the San Fernando Valley chapter of the California Republican League, serving on its Board of Directors since 1994.

Nate has been an attorney since 1983. Nate served as a Senior Judicial Attorney for the California Court of Appeal from 1983 through 1995, after which he opened his own law office, practicing exclusively in the area of civil appeals and writs. He is certified as an Appellate Specialist by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization.

From 2004 through 2009, Nate served as a member of the Alumni Board of Governors for the University of California's Hastings College of the Law. In addition to his private practice, Nate has donated his time serving as a Settlement Conference Officer for the California Court of Appeal and a Judge Pro Tem for the Los Angeles Superior Court. Through the Los Angeles County Bar Association's Appellate Courts Committee (of which Nate has been a member since 1988), he is part of a group of attorneys who handle appeals for free for indigent individuals.

MAGGIE SOLEIMANI
(New to County political activity)
Attorney
Candidate for Mayor of Beverly Hills

SCOTT SNAPP
Entertainer
Secretary, 42^nd Assembly District Central Committee
Member, Executive Committee, Republican Party of Los Angeles County

ASHLEY NICOLE INGRAM
Political Consultant
Current Positions:
Outreach Coordinator – Steve Cooley for Attorney General 2010 Campaign
28^th Congressional District Ex-Officio Member of the Executive Committee

Of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County and the California Republican Party.

Executive Director – Young Republican Federation of California
Youth Committee Chair – Republican Party of Los Angeles County
Youth Committee Chair – San Fernando Valley Republican Club
V.P. Precinct/Campaign Operations – Encino Oaks Republican Women Federated
Prior Positions:
Field Representative – Rudy Giuliani Campaign – 2007-2008
Deputy Campaign Manager – Tony Strickland for CA Senate 2008 campaign.
Executive Director – Republican Party of Los Angeles County – 2009

These are the people who Rick Williams calls the “old guard” who are responsible for what is wrong with the Republican Party of Los Angeles County. The Take Back Los Angeles County slate has the goal of defeating Democrats and taking back Los Angeles County for the Republican Party.

People don’t have resumes like that by sitting on their hands. Everyone on this slate has paid his dues through hard work in the Republican Party.

I, for one, am very proud to be associated with these fine conservatives who are, every day, devoting their time to support the Republican Party and its message of freedom. Why don’t you ask the members of the “Freedom Slate” what their contribution has been to the Republican Party over the past five years?

I am not interested in giving Robert Vaughn and his cohorts (including his attorney) another way to attempt to get control of the county party since they can’t get it by legitimate election. Robert Vaughn and his group are not recognized by the California Republican Party as having any legitimacy.

Do you really want to work to support people who are costing the Republican Party of Los Angeles County tens of thousands of dollars that should properly be going to support Republican candidates in this critical year? Do you really want to support a “Ron Paul-libertarian” takeover of the county party? Do you really want to support homophobic, intolerant candidates? Do you really want to support a slate of people who have had no political experience, with the exception of Hernandez? Do you really want to support people who are just interested in gaining power, and not in working for Republican causes? Do you really want to contribute money that may well be used against the Republican Party of Los Angeles County?

I urge you to reconsider your support of the so-called “Freedom Slate.” I hope you will support the “Take Back Los Angeles County” Slate, consisting of dedicated Republicans who have devoted themselves to the task of taking back Los Angeles County from Democrats.

Breitbart: Obama's Alinsky Plans to Demonize The Tea Party Movement

2010-04-03T17:45:00.000-07:00

Andrew Breitbart explains the Alinsky tactics both the Administration and the Democratic Party are using to discredit the tea party movement. Attempting to provoke a racist incident on the Capitol steps, lying about being called racial epithets, falsely depicting some fringe elements of the movement as representative of the whole, characterizing the movement as "angry" and "hate-filled" when it is no such thing, are all attempts to use Alinsky-type tactics to isolate, marginalize, and demonize those who would stand up against Democrat Party tyranny.

The race baiting of the Tea Party crowd on the Capitol front was caught by calling the Democrats out — and they didn’t deliver the goods. The attempt to incite a reaction from the Nevada Tea Party was even worse. They were the violent ones, who traveled out of their way to provoke an incident — and when they didn’t get it, they blamed the victim.

IT’S ON TAPE. And the person lying on camera to the police is the field director of the Nevada Democratic Party.

Over at Media Matters, Podesta’s den of deceit, the phantom egg has turned into Breitbart mockery over easter eggs. Change the subject, misdirection, their side caught with their pants around their ankles, don’t look there media, there’s nothing to see here.

Alinsky.

The Democrats need to kill the Tea Party movement. They need to marginalize and demonize those who would stand up to their hardball, toxic and anti-democratic tactics. Their strategy is to bait and incite the Tea Party and to use whatever they can get to silence the awakening giant. They have failed, epically, and the American people now see these tactics for what they are. At long last, new people every day are beginning to understand the kinds of people we are dealing with here.

Will the media keep falling into the trap? Their business model continues to fail each and every time they are suckered – unless, of course, they are doing it on purpose. The Republican Party failed in its attempt to make good with the Tea Party when its leaders apologized for it. When will the GOP stop playing Charlie Brown to the media’s Lucy? The Democratic party has been exposed as trying to create a Kristallnacht to save the Obama presidency along the fault line of race and the essence of the First Amendment. If the GOP does not have the intestinal fortitude to fight back, a growing number of disenchanted and disenfrachised Tea Party participants will have to do it themselves.

Who is calling the shots here? Is it the White House, by way of Chicago? Or is it Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? The press refused to tell you the truth about this president. It refused to tell you of his proud adherence to the teachings of the original Chicago “community organizer” Saul Alinsky. We have now entered the first full-fledged Alinsky presidency. The only way to beat Alinsky is with Alinsky. The Democrats and President Obama will not give up this tack. Do you think the GOP will win the day in November and in 2012 if its strategy is to apologize for every manufactured “right wing fringe” outrage?

With President Obama over the last week calling attention to the Tea Parties and their “heated” rhetoric, he has officially connected himself to the civil war his minions have flailingly attempted to inflame. The only good thing to come of this is that we can now officially put to rest the laughable notion that Obama was going to be the first post-racial president.

Go here to read the whole article.

Democrats' Rainbows and Unicorns

2010-04-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

What You Should Know About the Democrat Health Bill - Hidden Taxes, Fines and Bribes

2010-03-28T00:07:00.000-07:00

President Obama and his legion, Pelosi, Reid, Stupak, et al, have said basically that once the American people get to know what’s in the healthcare legislation, they’ll actually like it. We all know how very important it is to the President and Speaker Pelosi that the American people be happy.

One must assume, based on the President’s assurance, that once we get to know this health care reform legislation up-close and personally, we’ll be so happy that we’ll all gather on a hilltop and hold hands to sing a groovy song and will vote unanimously to usher in a new age of Aquarius.
Okay. Let’s see if that works.

Here are a couple of things I learned about this legislation since its passage that I had not known previously.

• When you buy your federally mandated, IRS enforced - either by penalty of a fine or imprisonment - health care insurance you may be buying from an insurance company that will donate a portion of what you spend for your insurance to a special fund to help pay for abortions. It is now mandatory that certain insurance carriers provide a portion of what you pay them for health care coverage to a special abortion fund – Stupak’s hastily scribbled hall pass aside, this is now law.
          o There is no special fund for Breast Cancer
          o There is no special fund for Heart Disease
          o There is no special fund for Diabetes or MS
          o There is ONLY a special fund to pay for abortions

• When you sell a home in Mr. Obama’s new and improved America a 4% tax will be levied on your proceeds from the sale which will go to cover Health Care costs.

• Tanning? Apparently Dems want us all to be pasty for some reason…if you frequent tanning salons, you will pay a 10% excise tax.

• Mobility be damned! If you purchase a wheelchair, you will pay a 2.3% excise tax. I’m sure those confined to wheelchairs will consider this to be a great step forward in care.

• Pharmaceutical companies will be allowed to pass a $3 billion annual fee on to you, the consumer, in the form of more expensive drugs and medication.

• About those fines – Citizens who don’t purchase insurance would be subject to a fine of $325 in 2015 and $695 in 2016. Individuals may be subject to a charge equal to as much as 2.5 percent of their income in 2016.

• The Medicare payroll tax will now be applied to investment income, beginning in 2013.
          o A new 3.8 percent tax will be levied on interest, dividends,    capital gains and other investment income for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples making more than $250,000.

• The Medicare payroll tax will increase by 0.9 percentage point to 2.35 percent on wages above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.

• A 40% tax on health benefits happens in 2018 and applies to premiums exceeding $10,200 a year for individuals and $27,500 for families. In other words, that phrase – “If you like your current insurance, it won’t change” was a big fat lie. If you have great insurance, you’ll now be taxed for the privilege. A 40% tax is a change.

• Taxes and more taxes –
          o According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan agency, this legislation will generate $409.2 billion in additional taxes by 2019. The Congressional Budget Office also says that the Health Care Reform legislation will impose about $69 billion in penalties for both individual and businesses who don’t meet new mandates to buy health insurance.

• Here’s a really sneaky tax “increase” – if you itemize your tax returns, the deductible for medical expenses will change. You will only be allowed to deduct medical expenses in excess of 10% of your adjusted gross income. Currently that number is 7.5%.

• A medical plan tax that includes several different provisions to increase multiple taxes on things such as cosmetic surgery, cafeteria plans, health insurance providers, production and importation of drugs and medical devices, medical information providing, hospitals and the adjusted gross income floor of medical expenses.

• Doctors and hospitals will receive less compensation than they do now to control revenue streams.

• The Medicare program will see $500 billion in cuts to its program along with the Medicare tax being raised.

• 60% of new enrollees in health care programs will be fully subsidized by you.
Then there’s all those “incentives” laced into the legislation - strangely – only for those Representatives who voted “Yes” for this legislation.

• $300 Million more in Medicare subsidies for Louisiana

• NV, MT, WY, ND, UT all receive $2 billion in Medicare subsides

• Connecticut gets $100 Million to build a hospital

• 11 states total receive 8.5 Billion in Medicaid payments

Even the most casual observer must wonder how a struggling economy, with out-of-control unemployment can bear the burden of so much additional taxation and spending.

President Obama gloated, “This is what change looks like.”

To be fair, I suppose it is possible that Barack Obama never actually said the change he was promising would be positive change, or even change that the American people wanted.

This may be what change looks like, but it is also what bitter partisanship looks like.
Obama promised to reach across the aisle. He never mentioned that once he reached across he was going to sucker punch the Republicans.

Never did I hear Obama promise to ignore the will of the people.

Since last night, Obama, Pelosi and their legion have taken time to grin and pose for the cameras and proclaim the passage of this bill as “historic”. They’ve taken time to pat themselves on the back and to say that this legislation compares to the passage of Medicare, the passage of Social Security and the passage of Civil Rights.

In terms of the monumental impact this law will have on our nation, they are correct to rank it up there with all of those past life-changing pieces of legislation. There is however one incredibly glaring difference. Those milestone pieces of legislation all passed with bi-partisan support.

The only bi-partisanship exhibited in the passing of this legislation was on the side of dissent with more than 30 Democrats crossing over to the Republican side of the aisle to cast their “No” votes. The only Democratic Representative from the state of Texas to vote "No" was Waco's Chet Edwards.

Obama, Pelosi and the others have suddenly become aware of the words “prayer” and “constitution” and the terms “founding fathers” and to watch them use these words to justify their power grab is insulting. It’s every bit as insulting as the American people being told over and over again that “once you understand it” you’ll be happy to have it.

The condescending attitude from this President and this Congress is unprecedented. The President added to the insult by saying, “We proved that this government -- a government of the people and by the people -- still works for the people."

Mr. President that is perhaps your boldest and most condescending lie to date.
56% of the people in this nation opposed this health care reform legislation. Your actions have proven that your words have no meaning and that your government -- a government of the politician and for the politician -- views the people with absolute disdain.

John G. Winder , The Cypress Times

Timeline of Major Provisions in the Democrats’ Health Care Package

2010-03-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

Source: Committee on Ways and Means Republicans

2009

•2‐year tax credit (total cap of $1B) for new chronic disease therapy investments
•Medicare cuts to hospitals begin (long‐term care (7/1/09) and inpatient and rehabilitation facilities (FY10))

2010

•States and Federal officials review premium increases
•FDA authorized to approve "follow‐on" biologics
•Increase brand name pharmaceutical Medicaid rebate (from 15.1% to 23.1%)
•Medicare payments to physicians in primarily rural areas increase (2 years)
•Deny "black liquor" eligibility for cellulosic biofuel producers credit
•Tax credits provided to certain small employers for health care‐related expenses
•Increase adoption tax incentives for 2 years
•Codify economic substance doctrine and impose penalties for underpayments (transactions on/after 3/23/10)
•Provide income exclusion for specified Indian tribe health benefits provided after 3/23/10
•Temporary high‐risk pool and high‐cost union retiree reinsurance ($5 B each for 3.5 years) (6/23/10)
•Impose 10% tax on indoor UV tanning (7/1/10)
•Medicare cuts to inpatient psych hospitals (7/1/10)
•Prohibits lifetime and annual benefit spending limits (plan years beginning 9/23/10)
•Prohibits non‐group plans from canceling coverage (rescissions) (plan years beginning 9/23/10)
•Requires plans to cover, at no charge, most preventive care (plan years beginning 9/23/10)
•Allows dependents to stay on parents’ policies through age 26 (plan years beginning 9/23/10)
•Provides limited protections to children with pre‐existing conditions (plan years beginning 9/23/10)
•Hospitals in "Frontier States" (ND, MT, WY, SD, UT ) receive higher Medicare payments (FY11)
•Hospitals in “low‐cost” areas receive higher Medicare payments for 2 yrs ($400 million, FY11)

2011

•Medicare Advantage cuts begin
•No longer allowed to use FSA, HSA, HRA, Archer MSA distributions for over‐the-counter medicines
•Medicare cuts to home health begin
•Wealthier seniors ($85k/$170k) begin paying higher Part D premiums (not indexed for inflation in Parts B/D)
•Medicare reimbursement cuts when seniors use diagnostic imaging like MRIs, CT scans, etc.
•Medicare cuts begin to ambulance services, ASCs, diagnostic labs, and durable medical equipment
•Impose new annual tax on brand name pharmaceutical companies
•Americans begin paying premiums for federal long‐term care insurance (CLASS Act)
•Health plans required to spend a minimum of 80% of premiums on medical claims
•Physicians in "Frontier States" (ND, MT, WY, SD, UT ) receive higher Medicare payments
•Prohibition on Medicare payments to new physician‐owned hospitals
•Penalties for non‐qualified HSA and Archer MSA distributions double (to 20%)
•Seniors prohibited from purchasing power wheelchairs unless they first rent for 13 months
•Brand name drug companies begin providing 50% discount in the Part D “donut hole”
•10% Medicare bonus payment for primary care and general surgery (5 years)
•Employers required to report value of health benefits on W‐2
•Steps towards health insurance administrative simplification (reduced paperwork, etc) begins (5 yr process)
•Additional funding for community health centers (5 years)
•Seniors who hit Part D “donut hole "in 2010 receive $250 check (3/15/11)
•New Medicare cuts to long‐term care hospitals begin (7/1/11)
•Additional Medicare cuts to hospitals and cuts to nursing homes and inpatient rehab facilities begin (FY12)
•New tax on all private health insurance policies to pay for comp. eff. research (plan years beginning FY12)

2012

•Medicare cuts to dialysis treatment begins
•Require information reporting on payments to corporations
•Medicare to reduce spending by using an HMO‐like coordinated care model (Accountable Care Organizations)
•Medicare Advantage plans with a 4 or 5 star rating receive a quality bonus payment
•New Medicare cuts to inpatient psych hospitals (7/1/12)
•Hospital pay‐for‐quality program begins (FY13)
•Medicare cuts to hospitals with high readmission rates begin (FY13)
•Medicare cuts to hospice begin (FY13)

2013

•Impose $2,500 annual cap on FSA contributions (indexed to CPI)
•Increase Medicare wage tax by 0.9% and impose a new 3.8% tax on unearned, nonactive business income for those earning over $200k/$250k (not indexed to inflation)
•Generally increases (7.5% to 10%) threshold at which medical expenses, as a % of income, can be deductible
•Eliminate deduction for Part D retiree drug subsidy employers receive
•Impose 2.3% excise tax on medical devices
•Medicare cuts to hospitals who treat low‐income seniors begin
•Post‐acute pay for quality reporting begins
•CO‐OP Program: Secretary awards loans and grants for establishing nonprofit health insurers
•$500,000 deduction cap on compensation paid to insurance company employees and officers
•Part D “donut hole” reduction begins, reaching a 25% reduction by 2020

2014

•Individuals without gov't‐approved coverage are subject to a tax of the greater of $695 or 2.5% of income
•Employers who fail to offer "affordable" coverage would pay a $3,000 penalty for every employee that receives a subsidy through the Exchange
•Employers who do not offer insurance must pay a tax penalty of $2,000 for every fulltime employee
•More Medicare cuts to home health begin
•States must have established Exchanges
•Employers with more than 200 employees can auto‐enroll employees in health coverage, with opt‐out
•All non‐grandfathered and Exchange health plans required to meet federally mandated levels of coverage
•States must cover parents /childless adults up to 138% of poverty on Medicaid, receive increased FMAP
•Tax credits available for Exchange‐based coverage, amount varies by income up to 400% of poverty
•Insurers cannot impose any coverage restrictions on pre‐existing conditions (guaranteed issue/renewability)
•Modified community rating: individual or family coverage; geography; 3:1 ratio for age; 1.5 :1 for smoking
•Insurers must offer coverage to anyone wanting a policy and every policy has to be renewed
•Limits out‐of‐pocket cost‐sharing (tied to limits in HSAs, currently $5,950/$11,900 indexed to COLA)
•Insurance plans must include government‐defined "essential benefits " and coverage levels
•OPM must offer at least two multi‐state plans in every state
•Employers can offer some employees free choice vouchers for health insurance in the Exchange
•Government board (IPAB) begins submitting proposals to cut Medicare
•Impose tax on nearly all private health insurance plans
•Medicare payment cuts for hospital‐acquired infections begin (FY15)

2015

•More Medicare cuts to home health begin

2016

•States can form interstate insurance compacts if the coverage with HHS approval (2016)

2017

•Physician pay‐for‐quality program begins for all physicians
•States may allow large employers and multi‐employer health plans to purchase coverage in the Exchange.
•States may apply to the Secretary for a limited waiver from certain federal requirements

2018

•Impose "Cadillac tax on “high cost” plans, 40% tax on the benefit value above a certain threshold: ($10,200 individual coverage, $27,500 family or self‐only union multiemployer coverage)

The Key To Socialism In The USA: Destroy The Tea Party Movement

2010-03-27T23:33:00.000-07:00

From Dr. Melissa Clouthier:

Why stop at socialism? I mean, really. That’s just a pretty way of saying communism. Here’s the most accurate label for the New Left: NeoComms. I plan to use it everywhere.

Think I’m being extremist? Well David Frum and all his smooth talking moderate talkers can chew on this:

These debates are happening on the basis of charges like reformism, revisionism, and right opportunism. For me, this is proof that not enough has been done to modernize our organization and to transform Marxism from an old catechism into a real guide to action and a way of understanding the concrete conditions of struggle in our own country and in our own time. As one of the main preconvention documents said, “We have to accept and adapt to the reality that times have changed” (from U.S. Politics at a Transition Point).

The growing influence of the Tea Party movement, the long and grueling fight that was healthcare reform, and so many other features of the current struggle should demonstrate convincingly that though the 2008 election dealt a major blow to the ultra-right, it did not knock them out completely as we had hoped.

Rather than jumping to the conclusion that we need to shift our focus to criticism of Obama, the Democratic Party, or the labor movement, we should instead be seeking to recommit ourselves to defeating the ultra-right and building the broad democratic coalition more strongly than ever. This is the orientation that the main discussion documents point us toward. We have to keep in mind who the “main social force(s) hindering progressive development” are and keep our fire aimed at them (from U.S. Politics at a Transition Point).

If the policy of defeating the ultra-right was correct in the 1980s, the 1990s, and 2008, how can it not be just as correct now that we are in a moment of transition toward a time when we can more forcefully go on the offensive? Let’s update our strategic policy to take account of post-election developments of course, but let’s not take a path that would isolate us from the rest of the coalition for change.

So the threat to Marxism-Leninism isn’t from President Obama and the Democrats. Indeed, the problem with the Democrats is their implementation. The communists merely disagree with how it’s happening. They like that it’s happening.

And in fact, the real problem is the Tea Partiers. The pesky folks pushing back against socialism must be stopped. Notice that they didn’t mention the Republicans.

The article ends with a plea to change the communist movement, maybe even renaming it and making it more palatable to the modern world.

Why? Why hide what you are? Ultimately, don’t bother. Just call yourselves Democrats and be done with it. And commies should worry about Tea Partiers. They name you. And the Democrats, too.

Communists. Socialists. Statists. Totalitarians.

NeoComms.

The name change won’t disguise a NeoComm. The ideas reveal the heart of these people.

Much as they’d like to destroy the Tea Party movement, it won’t happen. The Tea Party movement is organic. It will morph and change and grow. It isn’t headed by an organization. It doesn’t require one leader to exist.

But most of all, the beliefs of the Tea Party folks will help them win in the end. Liberty. Ingenuity. Creativity. Life. Happiness. Freedom. Those values beat the smallness of socialism. Always.

Why Socialism Doesn't Work - A Class Experiment

2010-03-27T18:21:00.000-07:00

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Without the Consent of the Governed

2010-03-27T17:39:00.000-07:00

WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED
By JB Williams Friday, March 26, 2010

Obama’s Unconstitutional Health Care Treachery is just the beginning of a dark and sinister age in American history. Now that Obama & Co. have found the legislative mechanisms to subvert the Law of the Land on the federal health care grab, they intend to rush forward with the passage of “financial reform”—“energy reform”—and “Immigration reform”—none of which are any type of “reform.”

All of these measures are massive federal power and resource grabs, moving the vast resources of the United States from private sector control to public sector control. It is called socialism, by way of democratic process.

All of it will be done over the next few months without the consent of the governed, before the November election when leftists expect to lose their fifteen minutes of power in the voting booth. They plan to advance their anti-American agenda no matter how many stand opposed, and in such a manner that it can never be reversed.

As I pointed out very clearly in my most recent column, for any federal law to be “constitutional,” it must meet this minimum standard…

1. It must be within the limited federal powers enumerated in the Constitution
2. It must enjoy the support of the vast majority of “the governed,” from which all federal powers are derived
3. It must not infringe upon the unalienable individual rights of any citizen
4. It must not infringe upon the rights of any state, protected by the Tenth Amendment
5. It must become law by way of legal legitimate legislative process

Obama’s Health Care treachery violates all five of these standards and as a result, it cannot be allowed to stand. They are just getting started. This is about much more than health care, yet health care is where the people must put a stop to all of it.

How the rest of the world runs is of no consequence to Americans. In the United States of America, “the people” are the government, and our federal government derives every ounce of its power strictly from the “consent of the governed.” Our elected officials are not Kings - they are “servants.”

Read More...

Max Baucus Admits To Being A Communist

2010-03-25T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe not exactly in those words, but he said this:

In an unusual speech on the Senate floor moments ago, Max Baucus declares that the "healthcare bill" to be "an income shift, it is a shift, a leveling to help lower income middle income Americans." Baucus continued, "[t]oo often, much of late, the last couple three years the mal-distribution of income in America is gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy, and the middle income class is left behind. Wages have not kept up with increased income of the highest income in America. This legislation will have the effect of addressing that mal-distribution of income in America."

That is exactly what Communists believe, so Max Baucus is clearly a secret Communist. I suspect most "progressive" Democrats agree with him.

Max Baucus is the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and the Democrat most responsible fo Obamacare's final shape other than Nancy Pelosi.

Baucus' candor is appreciated, though the fact that he waited until the bill passed to announce the real agenda behind the massive tax hikes isn't a profile in courage. And the seniors on fixed income who are about to lose Medicare Advantage would laugh at Baucus' pseudo-populism. (h/t Hugh Hewitt)

You can see the video below.

We all knew that the Obamacare bill wasn't about healthcare. There were many ways to achieve healthcare reform that would have cost a fraction of the cost of the Obamacare bill. There had to be more to it. Sen. Baucus has admitted that there was and defined it as a massive redistribution of wealth in America.

The Democrat Party will be remembered as the party responsible for destroying the capitalist system, along with freedom, in America. Now only they can determine how much you have the right to earn. And only they have the right to determine how much you have to give up from your capital to give to those who weren't as successful as you.

The Statue of Liberty is shedding tears. When asked by a citizen, "What have you made?", after coming out of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin retorted, "A Republic, if you can keep it." Sadly, it doesn't appear that we can.

We cannot let the statists and the Marxists continue to run this country. America was founded as the Land of the Free, where citizens can be free to live their lives with minimal interference from their government. We must take it back. We have to see that conservative Republicans are elected in November so we can take back the House of Representatives

20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms

2010-03-22T22:18:00.000-07:00

20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms
By: David Hogberg

With House Democrats poised to pass the Senate health care bill with some reconciliation changes later today, it is worthwhile to take a comprehensive look at the freedoms we will lose.

Of course, the overhaul is supposed to provide us with security. But it will result in skyrocketing insurance costs and physicians leaving the field in droves, making it harder to afford and find medical care. We may be about to live Benjamin Franklin’s adage, “People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.”

The sections described below are taken from HR 3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the reconciliation bill as displayed by the Rules Committee.

1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)

2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).

3. You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711).

4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712).

5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employers’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).

6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).

7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a “Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough. (Section 1302 (d) (1) (A))

8. You are an employer in the small-group insurance market and you’d like to offer policies with deductibles higher than $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough. (Section 1302 (c) (2) (A).

9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 101 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513).

10. You are an employer who offers health flexible spending arrangements and your employees want to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)).

11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))

12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A))

13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a country where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).

14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)

15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).

16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)).

The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9% excise tax for medical device makers. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405).

17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B).)

18. If an insurance company board or its stockholders think the CEO is worth more than $500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.(Section 9014).

19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015).

That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402).

20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure. Think you know how to spend that money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9017).

Congress health care vote: a dark day for freedom in America

2010-03-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

The following are great comments about the health care vote by Nile Gardner writing in the Telegraph in the UK:

The passage last night of Barack Obama’s health care reform bill through the House of Representatives is yet another blow to freedom in America inflicted by the Obama administration. The legislation, which comes at a staggering cost of $940 billion, will hugely add to the already towering national debt, now at over $12 trillion. It is yet another millstone round the necks of the American people, already faced with the highest levels of unemployment in a generation.

It is also a great leap forward by the United States towards a European-style vision of universal health care, which will only lead to soaring costs, higher taxes, and a surge in red tape for small businesses. This reckless legislation dramatically expands the power of the state over the lives of individuals, and could not be further from the vision of America’s founding fathers. It has also been rushed through Congress without proper scrutiny, in the face of overwhelming public opposition, and with not an ounce of bipartisan support.

Above all the health care bill is a thinly disguised vanity project for a president who is committed to transforming the United States from the world’s most successful large-scale free enterprise economy, to a highly interventionist society with a massive role for centralized government. The United States has thrived as a nation for over 230 years precisely because of its love for freedom and its belief in free markets.

What we have just witnessed is a massive slap in the face for limited government and the principle of individual responsibility. Its net result will be the erosion of freedom in America, and a further undermining of the country’s economic competitiveness. This may be a political victory for the president and his supporters in Congress, but it is in reality a defeat for America as a great power, and another Obama-led step towards US decline.

The emasculation of America by its 44th President

2010-03-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

Melanie Phillips, at the UK Spectator, writes about the weakening of American and the sucking up to America's enemies and the throwing of America's friends under the bus by the current administration:

"Terrific blog post at the Telegraph by Nile Gardner who absolutely gets the point about Obama’s catastrophic strategy of sucking up to America’s enemies while kicking its friends in the teeth:

In the past month we’ve seen ample evidence of this with the State Department’s appalling decision to openly side with Argentina against Great Britain over the Falklands, and the White House’s bullying of Israel. Meanwhile, the Obama team swiftly issued a groveling apology to terrorist sponsor Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, for earlier casting aspersions over the Butcher of Tripoli’s call for a jihad against Switzerland. A barbaric Islamist tyrant with American blood on his hands is, incredibly, treated better than the leaders of both Britain and Israel.

...In the space of just over a year, Barack Obama has managed to significantly damage relations with America’s two closest friends, while currying favour with practically every monstrous dictatorship on the face of the earth. The doctrine of “smart power” has evolved into the shameless appeasement of America’s enemies at the expense of existing alliances. There is nothing clever about this approach – it will ultimately weaken US global power and strengthen the hand of America’s enemies, who have become significantly emboldened and empowered by Barack Obama’s naïve approach since he took office.

The Obama presidency is causing immense damage to America’s standing in the free world, while projecting an image of weakness in front of hostile regimes. Its treatment of both Israel and Britain is an insult and a disgrace, and a grim reflection of an unbelievably crass and insensitive foreign policy that significantly undermines the US national interest.

As a result, the world’s tyrannies are now looking upon the nation that is supposedly the protector of the free world with undisguised contempt at its self-induced weakness. As Jennifer Rubin notes at Commentary, while Hillary Clinton and the Obamites went ballistic at the ‘insult’ to the US of Israel’s housing policy, Clinton herself was subjected to a public and humiliating dressing down by none other than Vladimir Putin. Rubin observes:

Putin has figured out that there is no risk — so long as you aren’t a small democratic ally of the U.S. — of incurring the wrath of the Obami. No condemnations or even frowns will be forthcoming. This is, you see, what comes from throwing ourselves at our adversaries’ feet and scorning our allies. Adversaries learn to take advantage of us while friends learn not to trust us.

Weakening America and strengthening its enemies. Yup, that was all in the prospectus when Obama ran for power. And now we are beginning to see its mortal effects."

Washington Times Commentary: Impeach the President?

2010-03-20T00:41:00.000-07:00

Writing commentary in the Washington Times, Jeffrey T. Kuhner says that if Obama signs a healthcare bill which is presented to him through the so-called "Slaughter Solution" he will be violating the Constitution and will have committeed "high crimes and misdemeanors" warranting impeachment.

The Democrats are assaulting the very pillars of our democracy. As the debate on Obamacare reaches the long, painful end, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is confronting a political nightmare. She may not have the 216 votes necessary to pass the Senate's health care bill in the House.

Hence, Mrs. Pelosi and her congressional Democratic allies are seriously considering using a procedural ruse to circumvent the traditional constitutional process. Led by Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, New York Democrat and chairman of the House Rules Committee, the new plan - called the "Slaughter Solution" - is not to pass the Senate version on an up-or-down vote. Rather, it is to have the House "deem" that the legislation was passed and then have members vote directly on a series of "sidecar" amendments to fix the things it does not like.

This would enable House Democrats to avoid going on the record voting for provisions in the Senate bill - the "Cornhusker Kickback," the "Louisiana Purchase," the tax on high-cost so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans - that are reviled by the public or labor-union bosses. If the reconciliation fixes pass, the House can send the Senate bill to President Obama for his signature without ever having had a formal up-or-down vote on the underlying legislation.

Such a move would be in violation of the Constitution, according to Kuhner and others.

The Slaughter Solution is a poisoned chalice. By drinking from it, the Democrats would not only commit political suicide. They would guarantee that any bill signed by Mr. Obama is illegitimate, illegal and blatantly unconstitutional. It would be worse than a strategic blunder; it would be a crime - a moral crime against the American people and a direct abrogation of the Constitution and our very democracy.

It would open Mr. Obama, as well as key congressional leaders such as Mrs. Pelosi, to impeachment. The Slaughter Solution would replace the rule of law with arbitrary one-party rule. It violates the entire basis of our constitutional government - meeting the threshold of "high crimes and misdemeanors." If it's enacted, Republicans should campaign for the November elections not only on repealing Obamacare, but on removing Mr. Obama and his gang of leftist thugs from office.

It is time Americans drew a line in the sand. Mr. Obama crosses it at his peril.

Interesting times we live in.

Read the whole article here.

Technorati Tags: Healthcare Bill,Slaughter Solution,Impeachment,Obamacare

Obamacare: Drafting of a Socialist Democracy

2010-03-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

Michael Erickson argues that, rather than showing a deaf ear to the cries of most Americans against the big government approach of "Obamacare," its proponents in fact are pursuing a long term, political advantage, one that will more than make up for expected electoral defeats in November. As such, Republicans cannot hope to win, unless they provide an alternative, positive vision of their own.

In recent weeks, much has been made within conservative media circles of the apparent penchants of President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi, and company for political suicide. The argument is that, in defying the clear will of the American people by forcing through "Obamacare," even if necessary by the most tawdry of Congressional procedural gimmicks, they are showing a cavalier disregard for their own electoral prospects in November.

There is certainly a strong, factual basis for the claim. Polls have been steadily turning against "Obamacare" since the "Cornhusker Kickback" and the "Louisiana Purchase" became common parlance. The old game of "pay to play," which indeed has been a mainstay of legislative sausage making since the machinations of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, is now open to public scrutiny and comment like never before possible - thanks in large part to the internet and twenty-four hour cable news. Given how President Obama from the start handed over the details of his own health care agenda to the likes of Reid and Pelosi, it was inevitable that the process would be consumed by legislative trickery, resulting in a loss of public confidence.

Republican victories in special elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and then, most surprisingly, in Massachusetts confirmed the polls, especially as each of these contests emerged as a virtual referendum on "Obamacare." There is now a "perfect storm" brewing, one very capable of replicating, if not outdoing, the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994. Even Democrat spin does not pretend that this is going to be a typical, mid-term loss for the party occupying the White House.

Nevertheless, in spite of this cauldron, the Democrat leadership very defiantly presses ahead. There is no longer even the pretense of "fair play" or "listening to the voters," as President Obama tries to win over votes in the House by offering trips on Air Force One, and as Speaker Pelosi brandishes every one of her carrots and sticks over the remaining few dozen "undecided" Democrat Congressmen. If the House manages to pass the Senate bill, then it will be done as a most crass exposition of legislative skullduggery. It will be the sheer triumph of sophistry over reason, realpolitik over statesmanship, and Washington insiders over the people. Even the victors will need to sweep their embarrassment under the rug and brace themselves for the onslaught come Election Day.

This is not a pretty picture, and yet it easily could have been avoided if indeed President Obama had pursued a sincere, health care summit with the Senate and House Republican leadership, in the aftermath of the victory of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election. If he had pulled a "Clinton," by really reaching to the center and "triangulating" himself between the big government solution offered by the Democrats and the status quo presumably being offered by the GOP, then he could have forced both sides into a truly bi-partisan bill - one that would permit him then to transcend the old, partisan fray and recapture his role as the one, and indeed indispensable, agent of change. With some dare and imagination, he could have dismantled overnight the GOP surge accompanying Brown's victory, thereby showing himself to be the master impresario on the Washington stage.

Instead, Obama dug in his heels, by only adding a few, non-controversial, and relatively unimportant, Republican ideas to his post-summit proposal. It was sheer window dressing, and even the mainstream media could not suggest otherwise. In the aftermath, conservatives could not but ask: Is Obama simply not as smart as the "triangulating" President Clinton, who manipulated that Gingrich surge in 1994 into his own re-election two years later? Or is he allowing his ideological drive, one born in said cradle of Frank Marshall Davis, Bill Ayers, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to overcome his better judgment?

The implication behind both questions is that President Obama, and the leftist, Democrat leadership on Capitol Hill, are making a mistake; but in considering this from a long term perspective, they are appearing rather as the "fools" who don the stage in several of Shakespeare's plays. They are knaves, to be sure; and, when we see Pelosi in particular bumbling her way through a press conference, there is no doubt a good measure of basic obtuseness as well. Still, I cannot but help see the upturned, sly smile, as the "fool" bespeaks a canny insight in his jest.

If "Obamacare" passes in any form, the Democrats in the short term will face certain obliteration; but, in the long term, they will have done more since both the New Deal and the Great Society to cultivate an overarching dependency class. In creating a system of permanently increasing taxes and deficits (once it becomes clear that the presently imagined manners of paying for this new system will be all too inadequate, especially after the first decade of its existence), this monstrosity will rape whatever financial independence the already overtaxed middle class may be able to muster. More importantly, it will diminish expectations among American consumers of health care, as they reconcile themselves to the inevitable rationing of care. Instead of aspiring for better and more, even in regards to so personal an issue as their own health care, they will become accustomed to having less; and, among the indoctrinated, they actually will see a moral "good" in such a condition. I cannot help but think of Orwell's 1984, where the citizens of Oceania learn over time to regard their subsistence in squalor as a "patriotic duty" for the good of the "war." The next thing we know, we shall have a Vice President tell us that it is our "patriotic duty" to pay higher taxes and to settle for less.

Let us be clear on this point. "Obamacare" cannot but fail, in terms of its own, underlying financial solvency; and this in turn will create a burgeoning demand for a "public option" as a "remedy" for the overtaxed employers and individual policy holders trying in vain to make a living under its conditions. Also, when the United States Supreme Court inevitably throws out as unconstitutional the mandate that Americans purchase health insurance, the argument will be that, absent a "public option," there will be nothing to keep insurance companies in line.

Far from being a bumbling disaster, "Obamacare" will turn out in time to be a most grand, Machiavellian scheme. It will usher forth the socialist democracy for which said Democrat Party has been uniformly committed since Senator George McGovern and the "New Left" wrested power away from the "Old Guard" in 1972. Its proponents understand that, while Americans traditionally aspire to be free, in fact most of them will give up that freedom for the "protections" offered by an ever expanding government, if conditioned to see that they are unexceptional and that their best days indeed are behind them. When we are just another European style socialist democracy, and when most of us are content with that fate, then indeed the tyrants will have won. They know that; it is a key component of their Marxist playbook. That is why they are playing for keeps on this particular bill, in spite of the very real prospects of electoral obliteration in November.

Republicans alone stand between this agenda and the precipice. None of the "third parties" will be able to rise in sufficient opposition; and, in the end, even the loudest of street rallies cannot do more than slow the tide. But if the GOP is to be effective to this end, then it must do more than simply say "NO" to "Obamacare," or merely offer up ideas that it knows all too well will go nowhere on Capitol Hill. It must not play politics as usual on this one, because if it does, then it will turn out to be as much an aid to that emerging tyranny as the Democrat Left.

Rather than be the party of "NO," the Republicans must be the party of "YES" to an alternative, but compelling, vision of the future: YES to a free market based system of health care (rather than a perpetuation of the cartel system that prevails in the status quo), which would include a dismantling of Medicare as we know it in our time; YES to an economy of sound money and fiscal restraint (rather than that loose money, Keynesian worldview with which Republicans have been all too fond since the deficits of the Reagan years); and YES to an American exceptionalism - in health care as in all other industries and cultural aspirations.

We of the "loyal opposition" must be less loyal and more revolutionary. There is no better time than the present to rise to the clarion call of real change. If in our opposition to "Obamacare" we come to see ourselves in that light, as patriots of a noble, American landscape, not as subjects of a global world of scarcity, then the legislative affronts facing us today may have their silver lining.

Palestinian 11 Year Old Children Committed to Death and Destruction

2010-03-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

This is why there can be no peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. Until the Arabs stop this horrific child abuse and stop teaching their children that blowing up Jews is beautiful from the time they are born there will never be a peaceful solution.

Kids seek Shahada Martyrdom for Allah

Palestinian children: Martyrdom for Allah is preferable to life and suicide terror is natural.

Presenter: You described Shahada as something beautiful. Do you think it is beautiful?
Walla, age 11: Shahada [Martyrdom] is a very, very beautiful thing. Everyone yearns for Shahada. What could be sweeter than going to paradise?
Presenter: What is better, peace and full rights for the Palestinian people, or Shahada?
Walla: Shahada. I will achieve my rights after becoming a Shahid [Martyr].
Presenter: OK, Yussra, would you agree with that?
Yussra, age 11: Of course; Shahada is sweet. We don't want this world, we want the Afterlife. We benefit not from this life, but from the Afterlife.
Presenter: Do you actually love death?
Yussra: Death is not Shahada.
Presenter: No, I mean the absence after death.
Yussra: No child loves death. The children of Palestine adopted the concept that Shahada is very good. Every Palestinian child, say someone aged 12, says: O Lord, I would like to become a Shahid.
Presenter: We've got a call, Sabrine from Ramallah.
Sabrine [telephone]: Ayyat al-Akhras was 17 when she blew herself up –
Presenter: Sabrine, are you for it or against it?
Sabrine [by telephone]: Of course I support blowing up, it is our right.
Presenter: Sabrine, now, is it natural that Ayyat al-Akhras blows herself up?
Sabrine: Of course it's natural.

Israel and the U.S.: Best friends?

2010-03-15T23:49:00.000-07:00

Why Is The US Undermining The Sovereignty Of Israel?

2010-03-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

WHY IS THE U.S. UNDERMINING THE SOVEREIGNTY OF

ISRAEL

?
By Gary A. Aminoff

Here are a few questions that I would like answers to:

When was the last time a sovereign nation announced urban planning decisions in its principal city and had the wrath of the United States rain down upon it?

What right does the Secretary of State have to declare the decision by the City of Jerusalem to allow the construction of 1,600 housing units "insulting" to the United States?

Why is the United States interfering in the right of a nation to conduct its business and provide housing for its residents?

The degrading treatment of a sovereign country by the

United States

is intolerable to all who believe in the right of nations to govern their own countries. It is especially troubling to American Jews who wonder why their government is treating Israel differently than it treats any other country?

The answer, of course, lies with the troubled political position of President Barack Obama. Obama, apparently having no coherent foreign policy, having alienated many of our allies, along with taking actions that make the

United States

appear weak and indecisive, needs a foreign policy "win."

He, like many on the left, have delusions that the real reason the Palestinian Arabs won't make peace with Israel is because of.....settlements. Those who know the truth would double over in laughter at the thought, if the matter weren't so serious.

The political naivete demonstrated by this administration, from the President to the Vice President to the Secretary of State to Special Ambassador Mitchell is astounding. They clearly have no understanding of what motivates the Palestinians. They think it is (wait for it)...the settlements.

The truth is, and everyone clearly knows this except our brilliant administration, that if Israel were to decide to destroy every settlement in the West Bank or all the housing in Jerusalem there would still be no peace with the Arabs.

Wake up Secretary Clinton, housing of residents of Jerusalem has NOTHING to do with whether the Arabs make peace with Israel or not. Israel gave up ALL of its settlements, and moved ALL of its population out of Gaza. Did that make a difference to the Arabs? Did it result in peace? Of course not!

They are playing our administration for fools. The housing issue is simply a "red herring" that enables them to avoid negotiating with Israel. Danny Danon, a member of the Israeli Knesset had this to say today,

"Secretary Clinton recently embraced the task of helping solve shipping problems of American food products to our shores, yet condemns our right to build homes for Jews in the city of Jerusalem. Jews living in Jerusalem is why Israel exists as a Jewish state. With all due respect, Madam Secretary, forget the gefilte fish for Passover and support our inalienable rights to the Jewish homeland, Israel.”

Here is the bottom line and why there will never be peace anytime soon between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

The goal of the Palestinians, whether they are led by Hamas or by Abbas, is not peace with Israel. It is the total destruction of Israel and its disappearance from the Middle East along with all of the Jews.

You can call for whatever talks you want to arrange. No amount of talking will result in peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs in our lifetime. Perhaps a new generation of Arabs who are not taught to hate Jews from the time of their birth will be able to accept Israel in the region. But, like the Jews after the exodus from Egypt, it will take a full 40 years for that generation to come into power.

I will tell you one way that peace could occur tomorrow from the Israeli point of view. Have the Arabs declare that they recognize the State of Israel and that they agree to stop bombing Israel or attacking Jews. Achieve that, and you will achieve instant peace. Since we all know the Arabs will never do that.....we also know there will be no peace.

It is counter-productive for the US to put pressure on

Israel

. Israel is not only a sovereign country, it is a democracy, it supports the US and the West, and it is a country which produces innovative products that make our everyday life easier and safer. The medical achievements that have come out of Israel in the past 20 years have saved an untold number of American lives.

To attempt to humiliate or subjugate Israel for domestic political gain is behavior which is not worthy of the long history and special relationship between the United States and

Israel

.

Gary Aminoff is the President of the San Fernando Valley Republican Club and is a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition. He is a commercial real estate broker practicing in Beverly Hills.

The Slaughter Solution Will Lead to Congressional "Slaughter"

2010-03-13T10:57:00.000-08:00

The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and a key ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to get the health care legislation through the House without an actual vote on the Senate-passed health care bill. You see, Democratic leaders currently lack the votes needed to pass the Senate health care bill through the House. Under Slaughter’s scheme, Democratic leaders will overcome this problem by simply “deeming” the Senate bill passed in the House - without an actual vote by members of the House.

Read more here , here and here.

Pelosi is so desperate to pass an unpopular bill she is looking for any way this can be deemed "passed" whether the American people want it or not.

"Passing" this bill through parliamentary manipulation will cause a populist uproar even worse than passing it on a straight up or down vote. The Democrats are determined to destroy their party.

Congressional Suicide Bombers

2010-03-13T10:25:00.000-08:00

U.S. Taxpayers Pay to Promote Middle East History Revision

2010-03-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

Arlene Kushner, writing in the Washington Times explains how the U.S. Government (meaning U.S. Taxpayers) have funded a 39 page glossy "Palestine Guide Book" just released by the Palestine Authority in which Israel doesn't exist.

The U.S. government, via the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has provided support for a glossy 39-page "Palestine Guide Book." Just released by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Tourism, it declares on its first page, "Palestine lies between the Mediterranean Coast and the Jordan River." Not until Page 10 are we informed - under the heading "Country" - that "Palestine comprises the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."

Ms. Kushner then provides a history of the area which history is ignored in the Palestine Guide Book.

The PA, awash in internal politics that are neither moderate nor conciliatory, has been displeased consistently with negotiations - despite some extraordinarily generous offers. It thus suits the PA to create "facts" unilaterally, making its case to the international community rather than at a negotiating table.

This booklet promotes fallacious positions that defy a major U.N. Security Council resolution and a written agreement between Israel and the PLO - both of which require negotiations for determination of final status for Palestinian Arabs.

It is unsettling to see the USAID logo on the back cover, but it is no accident.

Magdouline Slameh, head of the PA Ministry of Tourism Department of Materials and Translation, expressed gratitude to this writer for the wonderful support provided by USAID. She said her staff wrote the booklet in close cooperation with the USAID offices in Ramallah.

Go here to read the whole article.

Technorati Tags: Middle East,Israel,Palestinian HistoryHolocaust,History Revision

Dennis Prager: Why Democrats Don't Care About Our National Debt

2010-03-11T00:05:00.000-08:00

Dennis Prager, writing in Townhall.com, explains why the Democrats don't care about the $10 Trillion National Debt:

[...]

"And most Americans do not understand the difference between liberal and left. They do not realize, for example, that there is no major difference between the American Democratic Party and the leftist social democratic parties of Western Europe. They do not know that from Karl Marx to Obama, the left (as opposed to liberals) has never created wealth because it has never been interested in creating wealth; it is interested in redistributing wealth.

Therefore, unprecedented and unsustainable debt, a debt that will negatively affect most Americans' quality of life, renders the dollar increasingly undesirable, and undermines America's prestige and power in the world -- these developments do not particularly disturb the left. They may trouble the president, the Democratic Party, and others on the left on some political level, but that pales in comparison to what the left really wants: a huge government overseeing a giant welfare state and a country with far fewer rich Americans."

[...]

"But the demise of the dollar as the world's currency disturbs the left as much as does America's not getting a gold medal in curling at the Winter Olympics.

And as for America wielding less power in the world, that is a positive development for the American left. It is the world community as embodied in the United Nations that should wield power throughout the world, not an "overstretched," "imperialist" and "militarist" United States.

I used to believe that left and right have similar goals for America, that they just differed in the means they wanted used to get there. I was mistaken. The left has a very different vision of America than those who hold the founding values of America, most especially individualism and small government. And if the price of a once in a lifetime possibility of getting to a giant welfare state dominated by the left is America's steep financial decline, that is a price fully worth paying."

Read the whole article.

The Central Economic Fallacy of the Century

2010-03-10T23:44:00.000-08:00

The late Murray N. Rothbard once published a major article titled “Ten Great Economic Myths.” Included on Rothbard’s hit list were the notions that deficits are the cause of inflation and that economists can accurately forecast the future.

One myth that he didn’t cite dominates Washington today: that the economy can be successfully “managed” from some central point. This idea underlies, directly or indirectly, all of the others Rothbard mentions.

Unfortunately, society’s intellectual, political, and economic “mainstream” still accepts what should be called the Central Economic Fallacy of the Twentieth Century. The “mainstream” just doesn’t get it. Thus, we continue to see a basic progression. First, government subsidizes x or regulates y to correct for some government-diagnosed problem z. Unwanted side effects result, and z, assuming it exists, often grows worse. Government intervenes again to fix the side effects and redouble its efforts to battle z. More undesirable side effects result. And the process continues, with government growing inexorably as interventions accumulate. More and more of the economy is micromanaged through increasing webs of subsidy, regulation, and quick fix. The logical end result, as Ludwig von Mises has shown in great detail, is socialism.

Read the whole article. The author makes a lot of sense.

The Democrat Light Brigade Rides Into The Valley of Death

2010-03-05T15:45:00.000-08:00

Bill Saracino, writing in the Political Vanguard has an article about the Democrats and their drive to oblivion.

For one thing, the interests of re-electing Obama in 2012 might in fact be served by having a Republican-controlled congress as a foil in 2011 and 2012– more on this in a future column. Be that as it may, the opportunity for leftists to socialize 17% of the American economy does not come around often. To the true-believing socialists in Ms. Pelosi’s caucus and Mr. Obama’s White House – and there are many – such an achievement is worth sacrificing individual political careers, especially since most of the casualties will be among the less liberal members of the Democrat caucuses. Their thinking is that even a small step forward on health care will be the camel’s nose under the tent – irreversible in the future and certain to grow, as is the history of virtually all government entitlement programs of the past.

Sadly that may be true, and as such is bad news in the long run, but likely very good news in the short run for Republicans. President Obama and Ms. Pelosi appear content to treat Democrat members of Congress as the famed British Light Brigade of the Crimean War was treated by their commanders. The Light Brigade (cavalry) was ordered by incompetent officers to attack entrenched Russian and Turkish artillery. The result was a predictable slaughter of the cavalry.

Alfred Lord Tennyson immortalized the charge of the Light Brigade in his eponymous poem. Reading it again, it is difficult not to see recalcitrant Democrats in Congress in the poem’s stanzas, being ordered by their commanders onward, ever onward, to attack the entrenched artillery of vehement voter resistance to Obamacare.

“Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, into the valley of death rode the six hundred. Forward the Light Brigade, was there a man dismayed, not though the soldiers knew, someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die, into the valley of death rode the six hundred.”

There are currently 314 — not 600 — Democrat members of Congress. Those who have not drank the Pelosi/Obama Kool-Aid will shortly have to decide if they want to follow orders, vote for Obamacare and thereby ride into the valley of death that the voters will prepare for them this November. It will be fascinating to watch. Enough Democrats to defeat Obamacare know it is fatally flawed, know that “someone has blundered,” those someones being the president and Madame Speaker.

If those Democrats decide that the time has come to “make reply” and “to reason why,” they will stand firm and Obamacare will lose in the House. If, howeverb they decide that theirs is “but to do or die,” some form of Obamacare will pass, and the Democrat congressional majority will likely ride into the valley of death this November.

Go here to read the whole article.

U.N. Encourages Hollywood To Produce Leftist Propaganda Films

2010-03-03T23:33:00.000-08:00

The United Nations is in Hollywood to encourage filmmakers to produce films that support a leftist agenda. The Los Angeles Times published an article about it today.

When United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was foreign minister of South Korea from 2004 through 2006, he experienced directly how entertainment can shape popular perceptions, when not one but two TV networks began airing miniseries about the lives of Korean diplomats.

Although the series romanticized diplomat life with requisite dashes of love and conflict, the net effect for the foreign ministry was a burnished public image. "Good storytelling is a very strong tool to change the attitudes and minds of people," Ban recalled in an interview.

Ban said that's what was on his mind this week as he led a veritable platoon of top U.N. officials, including the heads of UNICEF and the World Health Organization, on a mission to Hollywood to build relationships with the entertainment community and encourage film and television story lines about issues high on the U.N. agenda, such as climate change and violence against women.

"I'm here to talk to the creative community -- Hollywood -- about how they could help the United Nations' work," he said."I've been meeting presidents and prime ministers, and leaders of the business communities, but my audience has always been very limited. If a journalist picks up what I have said, that's all I can do, but I really want to have the U.N. message coursing continually, and spreading out continuously to the whole world. The creative community, through [TV] and movies, can reach millions and millions of people at once, repeatedly, and then 10 and 20 years after a film's been made, the messages can be constant."

Read the whole article here.

Race to the Top is Indoctrination of our Children

2010-02-27T16:56:00.000-08:00

Pajamas Media has an article about Race to the Top. Race to the Top is an insidious plan to transfer control of our local schools to a bureaucracy in Washington who will have control of curricula being taught to our children. Go here to read the article.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

Despite the vast expansion of federal government mandates on state and local schools, Race to the Top has received relatively little resistance from proponents of smaller government. But the reality is that this plan not only usurps state rights; it also introduces a whole new program of indoctrination.

According to the DOE’s website, “integrity and transparency drive the process” of Race to the Top. In truth, it’s about as transparent as a blindfold, causing many school districts to opt out. Although states like Iowa, California, and Wisconsin applied for the grant money, many of their school districts are not choosing to participate. Citing an inability to get adequate information on the regulations that would be imposed on the schools, districts “struggled with unanswered questions about how tightly the funds would be tied to mandates.” Karl Paulson, a Missouri school district superintendent, wrote, “It is irresponsible for officials from the State Department of Education or State Board of Education to coerce local districts into a commitment through politics and press releases without the districts having the full design and requirements of that commitment being detailed.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, one of the few staunch opponents of the program, stated that it would be “foolish and irresponsible to place our children’s future in the hands of unelected bureaucrats and special interest groups thousands of miles away in Washington, virtually eliminating parents’ participation in their children’s education.” He added that if Washington truly cared about education, it would give the money to the states with “no strings attached.” Among those “strings attached” is a commitment to abandon local curricula to adopt unproven, national curriculum standards.

Still, the focus on charter schools has duped many on the right to support the program. But before cheering for charter schools, parents need to be reminded that the camouflage-clad, militant youth chanting and praising President Obama came from a Kansas City, Missouri, charter school. In reality, that school’s model much more closely resembles the vision of both Obama and Duncan.

Charter schools by definition are free from many of the rules and regulations of public schools. Although they have accountability standards, they set their own curricula and programs. But since the foundation of Race to the Top is setting a core curriculum determined by Washington, the reality is that these so-called charter schools will not set their own curriculum. The DOE is simply redefining the term “charter school” with the hopes that its program can sail through with little right-wing opposition.

With their newly defined charters, they’ll not only be able to change what students are learning, but more easily change who is teaching them. Traditionally, charter schools have been free from the burdens of teachers’ unions so that they can more easily fire and replace bad teachers. When a school becomes a charter school, its teachers even have to reapply for their jobs; enter AmeriCorps.

One of the most startling facets of Race to the Top is its attempt to get rid of as many traditionally educated teachers — i.e., those who go to a college to earn a master’s degree in education — and replace them with “alternatively” certified teachers; and, not just any alternatively certified teachers, but those certified by AmeriCorps’ Teach for America (TFA) and Teaching Fellows, which it runs jointly with the New Teacher Project (TNTP).

Read the whole article here.

Control of local schools belongs in the local community. It should not be at the state or the federal level. We need to educate everyone, especially parents, about what "Race to the Top" is all about.

We have to oppose this program at the local level. Do not let your school district opt in to this program. Retain control over your children's education.