Will we ever "connect the dots" to keep our country safe? If information had been examined better during Clinton's administration and Bush's, all those killed on 9/11 might possibly have been saved.
After health care rush, Senate moves slowly on national security
The Democratic leadership in the Senate put off dealing with the growing threat of the Iranian nuclear program so lawmakers could devote their energy to the rush toward passage of a national health care bill. Now, with that work done, Senate leaders say they will take action on Iran -- but only, in the words of Majority Leader Harry Reid, "sometime after we return in January."
Obama's greatest accomplishment keeps costing you moreThe Global Warming Matrix “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself”.
-Morpheus (The Matrix)
The public posting of e-mails from among the University of Anglia's Climate Research Unit -- also known by members of the irrepressible right wing conspiracy contingent as Climategate -- bears some amusing yet somewhat disturbing similarities to the popular Sci-Fi movie The Matrix. The movie's script -- particularly that of a character named Morpheus -- yields an arresting parallel to the largely unanticipated and equally devastating charges of unethical conduct, fraud, manipulation, and plain distortion of the facts leveled at the rather vociferous cadre of so-called scientists originally anointed to preach the gospel of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Court-Martial of the Navy SEALSThree Navy SEALS were recently charged with physically assaulting Ahmed Hashim Abed, a captured terrorist, and now face trial by special court-martial. There are apparently other charges, including making false official statements and dereliction of duty. It all seems pretty rotten, and in fighting terrorists who respect no law other than (possibly) their own, it is absurd to hold U.S. military personnel to strict standards while holding terrorists to none whatever. However, there is no reason yet to assume that the military has done that or will do so.
Who will be paying this terrorists hospital bill? I guess it will be the US tax payers. How can anyone feel safe is a suspect with “terror ties” wasn’t on a “no-fly list? Just one more example of where the government isn’t doing a very good job of keeping us safe. This problem didn’t start with President Obama, but he is just making things worse with taking his eye off the real role of our Government, not providing everyone with universal health care.
Official: U.S.
Knew for 2 Years of Plane Attack Suspect's Terror Ties
WASHINGTON — An official briefed on the attack on a Detroit airliner says the U.S. has known for at least two years that the suspect in the attack could have terrorist ties.
The official tells The Associated Press that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, has been on a list that includes people with known or suspected contact or ties to a terrorist or terrorist organization.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
'Balloon Boy' Parents Get Jail Time, 4 Years ProbationNebraska will never have to pay for Medicaid expansion. We all will be paying for Nebraska Medicaid expansion. Is this “change we can believe in?”
Sweetheart Deals and Political GamesCharges of backroom negotiations fly as health care bill passes key Senate vote
Health Care
DistractionDoctor-senator dismisses controversy over senate vote comments
The Abortion
CompromiseBehind the negotiations that convinced Sen. Ben Nelson to support the health care bill
Can GOP
Capitalize?
Will unpopular health care bill hurt Democrats in 2010?
"
Wrong track" poll numbers aren't just about the economy.
The news came in numbers and the numbers were fairly grim, all the grimmer for being unsurprising. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll reported this week that more than half of Americans, 55%, think America is on the wrong track, with only 33% saying it is going in the right direction. A stunning 66% say they're not confident that their children's lives will be better than their own (27% are).
. . . But we are concerned about other things, too, and there are often signs in various polls that those things may dwarf economic concerns. Americans are worried about the core and character of the American nation, and about our culture.
Change
Nobody Believes In
Even in World War I there was a Christmas truce.
The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that "reform" has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state. An increasing roll of leaders in health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and clean up the mess later. . .
The best and most rigorous cost analysis was recently released by the insurer WellPoint, which mined its actuarial data in various regional markets to model the Senate bill. WellPoint found that a healthy 25-year-old in Milwaukee buying coverage on the individual market will see his costs rise by 178%. A small business based in Richmond with eight employees in average health will see a 23% increase. Insurance costs for a 40-year-old family with two kids living in Indianapolis will pay 106% more. And on and on.
It is starting to look like Joe Wilson should be given a Congressional Medal when he said to President Obama “you lie”. Mr. Obama has lied about so many things. “the most transparent administration”, “no one making under $250,000 will see their taxes raised”, “if you like your doctor, you can keep seeing them” and so on and so on.
That Health-Care Tax
Pledge
If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime." So spoke Barack Obama at his first address to Congress in February. We're about to find out if the President cares about that promise as much he does passing a health-care bill.
Congressional Democrats have loaded up their health bills with provisions raising taxes on the middle-class by stacks and stacks of dimes. And Senate Democrats on Tuesday made clear they won't be bound by the President's vow; 54 voted to kill Idaho Republican Mike Crapo's amendment to strip the bill of taxes on families earning less than $250,000 and individuals earning less than $200,000. . .
A Senate Finance Committee minority staff report finds that by 2019 more than 42 million individuals and families—or 25% of all tax returns under $200,000—will on average see their taxes go up because of the Senate bill. And that's after government subsidies.
Prediction: Obama to
Undergo His Own Tiger Woods-Type Unmasking
RUSH: Mark my words, just as the truth about Tiger Woods has been exposed, so it shall be with Barack Obama. The parallels -- Lisa Schiffren had that great piece on this last week, the parallels between Barack Obama and Tiger Woods are stunning. We don't know if there's rampant sex romps going on with Obama. We doubt that. But everything else, they created for us a puff piece image of Obama, starting with his speech at the 2004 Democrat convention. We don't know who he is. We don't know anything about the man other than his years agitating the community in Chicago, the things he's written about in his books. But there's this image of "we've never had someone like this before, there's never been a man like this. He transcends normal people." Remember all these people gushing over him. Mark my words. At some point the same unmasking that has happened to Tiger Woods will happen to Barack Obama.
Tiger, Barack, and the Law of
TransitivitySure, there's normal prurience at work. But mostly, we are interested because Tiger Woods, who may legitimately be the best golfer ever, had been turned into an all-purpose icon: a man of personal rectitude, a lovely smile, apparent openness; a family man, with a lovely wife and two adorable babies. And of course, he was our first living embodiment of the collective hope for racial reconciliation. Who knew that the early reports of his betrayed wife Elin swinging at him with a golf club constituted literal icon-smashing?
We are staring because we've been had. Betrayed. We see now that the image was all a fraud
Par for the
Course: Why we can't get enough of the stories about Tiger Woods and the Salahis.
Given how desperately we want to believe in a human god, it didn't take much peddling from Team Tiger for us to accept Woods as a modern deity. With every new tournament victory, every new product endorsement, his divinity grew. His marketers made him a symbol of tolerance and brotherhood, and his father, Earl Woods, spoke gibberish about his son being a creature of destiny. Getting married and having children only added to Woods' marketability. I'm divine and monogamous and the center of a happy nuclear family. And we ate it up.
Liars and Prostitutes Pass Fraud Health Care Bill Tribute to Obama
RUSH: Merry Christmas, everybody. How's that hope and change working out for you? Merry Christmas, happy holidays to all of you from all of us here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. You want to hear a liar lie? You want to hear a liar lie right to your face? We have two of them, two sound bites here. Barack Obama this morning in Washington at the White House, a press conference about health care and a number of other things.
OBAMA: The Congressional Budget Office now reports that this bill will reduce our deficit by $132 billion over the first decade and by as much as $1.3 trillion in the decade after that. So I just want to be clear. For all those who are continually carping about how this is somehow a big-spending government bill, this cuts our deficit by $132 billion the first ten years, and by over a trillion in the second. That argument that opponents are making against this bill does not hold water.
RUSH: That's just an out-and-out lie, folks. I mean there's no other way to characterize this.
Changes in Senate Bill Give Democrats Little Wiggle Room for House Compromises
"The president made a number of promises, now he's changed all his promises," said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. "He promised that people wouldn't see their taxes go up, they will. The promised that we'd see health care premiums go down, oh, they're going to go up. He said he'd protect Medicare, they're going to cut $500 million from Medicare. He said if you like the coverage that you have you can keep it. That's not true."
The final deal made changes Obama had not hoped for, though on Monday he praised the Senate bill in a letter to his campaign arm in the Democratic Party, Organizing for America.
Lockerbie Bomber Had Secret
Swiss Bank AccountThe Lockerbie bomber had £1.8m ($2.9 million USD) in a Swiss bank account when he was convicted eight years ago, it has been revealed.
The Crown Office, Scotland’s equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service, has confirmed it refused to grant bail to Abdel Baset al-Megrahi as recently as November last year because of concerns he might try to gain access to the money.
The existence of such a large sum in a personal account casts doubt on claims by the Libyan government that Megrahi was a low-ranking airline worker.
The disclosure also raises further questions about the wisdom of the Scottish government in releasing the bomber, who has terminal prostate cancer, on compassionate
Iran
Admits Prisoners Were Beaten to Death by Jailers
By now I am not surprised when out comes another report about information the government knew years ago, but only started to fix the problems this year. If the military, one of the duties of the government stated in the constitution, can’t seem to get it right, why does anyone believe that a government takeover (yes, I know there people who say that the government isn’t taking over health care) of health care will be any better?
Military officers were warned early about Major Hassan, but nothing was done. The death of 14 American citizens (and yes, the unborn baby counts) was the result of the military officers not taking concerns seriously. When you have the majority of the American people thinking that the health care plan in the Senate is a bad idea, do our representatives in Congress hear the will of the people? No, they are going to ram it thought and deal with the consequences (Congressmen will lose their jobs) later.
Officers
Warned of Flaw in U.S. Drones in 2004
Senior U.S. military officers working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed the danger of Russia and China intercepting and doctoring video from drone aircraft in 2004, but the Pentagon didn't begin securing the signals until this year, according to people familiar with the matter.
As Gomer Pile says “Surprise, Surprise”. The most transparent Presidency in history ends up giving twice as much stimulus to Democrat districts that Republican districts.
Democratic Districts Won Twice as Much Stimulus as GOP Districts, Study Shows
Democratic districts have received nearly twice as much stimulus money as Republican districts and the cash has been awarded without regard to how badly an area was suffering from job losses, according to a new study. . .
“We found no correlation between economic indicators and stimulus funding. Preliminary results find no effect of unemployment, median income, or mean income on stimulus funds allocation," the report said.
Scott Ott doesn't think he's ever seen a president who looks down his nose at practically everyone. Did we elect a
king?Houston's Mayor-elect Annise Parker won her election on a conservative platform of fiscal responsibility, tougher law enforcement and cutting government waste. She may be a Democrat, but those
conservative principles show why you don't mess with Texas. Watch and comment here:
Did you miss Klavan's previous video, Bumper Sticker Police?
And if you like Klavan, check out Bill Whittle's Afterburner. A voice from beyond the grave speaks out against socializing America's healthcare.
Andrew Klavan looks at the conservative commentators most demonized by the mainstream media: Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter. ("Klavan on Culture") http://www.pjtv.com
Obama: Carter 2.0
http://www.frumforum.com/obama-carter-20
Of all the many, many disturbing facts we learned about Barack Obama during last year’s campaign, the one I personally found most disquieting was not the problematic associations with various leftists and loons (though they were certainly bad enough) but the complete and utter absence of any testimonials to Obama’s leadership and management ability. Normally, a party’s nominating convention features a parade of speakers to the microphone testifying to the nominee’s ability to get things done. “I vividly recall the day we were on our way to a campaign event, and he ordered the car stopped and personally organized the rescue of an old lady’s cat from a tree,” somebody would say. More seriously, the talk would be of bills passed, initiatives taken, lives improved, etc. But last year’s Denver convention featured none of that. No one so much as testified that he had successfully led a Boy Scout troop on an overnight hike.
Barrasso
Blasts Administration Decision to Spend $1 Billion on Foreign Forests
“With 10 percent unemployment and a $1.4 trillion dollar deficit, it’s already outrageous that the Obama Administration is working on a binding international climate change agreement that will kill more American jobs and decrease our economic growth. But today’s announcement just adds more fuel to the fire. The decision to spend over $1 billion on trees in foreign countries is another clear example of the Administration’s misplaced priorities. If the Obama Administration believes it has $1 billion to spare, why is it choosing to spend this money on forests in other countries instead of resolving problems at home?
News Hub: Iran Sends Message of
DefianceComing Soon: An '
International Environmental Organization'?
As the Copenhagen climate conference staggers toward the finish line of a star-studded plenary of political leaders on Friday, a number of influential countries — including France and Britain — have been calling for the creation of a new, global regulator to act as the world's environmental steward, equipped with still unspecified powers.
Our president gives himself a B-plus for his first year. The Trifecta team's
BS-meter is pegged.
Lawmakers
Spar Over Decision to Transfer Gitmo Detainees to Illinois Prison
"This decision changes nothing but geography," Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, ranking member of House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. "The Obama administration is naive if they really think that simply changing the location of Gitmo will improve our relations with terrorists. Bringing Gitmo detainees to the U.S. gives terrorists access to additional constitutional rights. These new rights may help terrorists avoid conviction and even file civil suits against American officials."
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, blasted the move as "preposterous" and said the administration will look to "paint this as jobs plan while making Americans less safe.”
Obama's
Push for Copenhagen Deal Could Violate Constitution, Critics Say
When Obama arrives in Copenhagen Friday, he is hoping to cut a deal on a new global-warming agreement. Even though the conference is not likely to produce a legally binding deal, critics say if the president signs an international climate treaty pledging reductions in carbon emissions, he will violate the Constitution.
"President Obama cannot bind the American people to job killing international agreements on climate change without the advice and consent of the United States Senate," former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote Wednesday at the conservative Web site Human Events.
