The DemCare Scam Continues

Here's the latest on DemCare...

The ping-pong ensues:

When the House or Senate passes a measure, it is sent to the other chamber for further consideration. If the second chamber passes the measure with one or more amendments, it is then sent back to the originating chamber. In modern practice, the second chamber typically substitutes its version of a measure as a single amendment to the measure as passed by the first chamber. The first chamber then may accept the amendment or propose its own further amendment. In this way, the measure may be messaged back and forth between the House and Senate in the hope that both houses will eventually agree to the same version of a measure.

Here's what RedState thinks will happen next:

Now this bill goes to the House where the House has the option of passing this bill intact, then sending it to the President. They may choose to pass the bill, then work on a technical corrections bill to take another run at the pubic option, reform the tax provisions and further modify the abortion provisions. More likely, the House takes up the Senate bill and inserts a complete substitute including measures they think can pass the Senate with a 60 vote majority. Remember, unless if they somehow use a Reconciliation strategy, they need 60 votes to pass this measure again in the Senate. Then the Senate can either pass the new bill or continue the Ping Pong process until one chamber can pass the bill intact. Bottom line is that this process will cut out any significant participation by the public, the press and all federally elected Republicans. So much for transparency and broadcasting the negotiations on C-Span.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi ducked out of the closed door DemCare meetings long enough to proclaim that there's never been a more open process. No seriously, she did, and she even cited the thousands of angry town halls over the summer as proof of how 'open' the debate has been. Hot Air points out this rather obvious point:

Is it DCCC tool Chris Van Hollen playing revisionist historian by touting the townhalls as proof of how much Democrats love debate even though (a) Obama initially wanted ObamaCare passed in July precisely so that he could short-circuit public outrage before it built momentum and (b) the Dems spent the rest of the summer demonizing the hell out of people who actually showed up to the townhalls? Or is it Pelosi having the gall to dismiss The One’s C-SPAN campaign promise with a blithe, chuckling, “There are a number of things he was for during the campaign!” Don’t blink or you’ll miss it, but it’s there. The Democratic Speaker of the House, laughing out loud — at a press conference — at what a shameless liar Bambi had to be to get elected.

And, just in case your memory on his C-SPAN promise is foggy:

Moving on...

Heritage explains that DemCare is not as advertised:

Yes, both the House and Senate would provide essentially free health insurance, through the Medicaid program, to many millions of low-income people. But, even so, enrollment in Medicaid is a far cry from getting good care when it’s needed. For starters, about 40 percent of the nation’s physicians don’t see Medicaid patients because the payment rates are too low, which also means certain hospitals have very low rates of Medicaid admissions. The truth is that current Medicaid enrollees already have trouble getting access to high-quality care when they need it because the network of providers willing and able to see them is constrained and over-burdened. The House and Senate bills would add 15 million or more people to this program’s rolls without any guarantee whatsoever that there will be doctors and hospitals that can see them.

Ironically, the very Democrats who most frequently tout “universality” as the goal are also the ones who ensure it will never actually come about by insisting that America’s lower-income families enroll in government-run insurance — with no other options.

Beyond the Medicaid expansion, Obamacare is really an obligation, not a right. Every citizen would be required to sign up with a government-approved health-insurance plan or pay a tax penalty for going without coverage.

Meanwhile, despite all of the talk of painlessly slowing the pace of rising costs with more efficient care, the Democrats’ bills would cut costs mainly by imposing arbitrary rate reductions in the Medicare program — pushing it more and more toward the Medicaid model.

And gosh-darnit, wouldn't you know it? More and more doctors and medical institutions are refusing to accept Medicare because it is a rip-off that hammers the medical provider and shafts the patient...now even the Mayo clinic has dropped it. But yes, by all means, let's go ahead and force Medicare on everyone. Brilliant idea.

Not only is DemCare a pack of destructive lies, but it's unconstitutional:

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), dated December 30, 2009, the Attorneys General of 13 States have objected to the so-called Nebraska Compromise that reportedly won the crucial support of Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) for the Senate health care takeover bill. The deal is said to involve an agreement that the Federal Government’s taxpayers will assume indefinitely the full share of the costs that Nebraska will incur as the result of the expansion of Medicaid that is one of the Act’s effects. The result is not only preferential treatment for Nebraska but it also hurts the rest of us because the other States will have to make up the difference.

Heritage delves into exactly why DemCare is unconstitutional; if you find yourself needing an explanation, hit the link. The bottom line is that it is inherently un-American for Congress to force all citizens to purchase any good or service, especially when only some citizens will foot the bill for it.

Isn't it amazing how the simplest questions can often illustrate immensely complex issues?

Why, indeed?

There's my two cents.

Capitalism And Our Economic Future

Jonah Goldberg has an outstanding column on capitalism at NRO, and it's well worth reading the whole thing:

On the last day of 2009, that awful year, I was listening to a report on National Public Radio (yes, I'm a listener). Reporter Tamara Keith presented a by-now-familiar recap of the worst financial and corporate scandals of the decade, from Enron and Martha Stewart to Tyco and Bernie Madoff. It was a depressing slog of greed, venality, and theft. When the report was over, Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep summarized the report with a tart: "The decade in capitalism."  

I don't want to single out Inskeep, since he was doing what pretty much the entire media establishment has done, particularly of late: reducing "capitalism" to its alleged sins.

And that's the point. There are few areas of life where a thing responsible for so much good gets so little credit for it.

Imagine if I were to collect the most infamous deeds of African Americans over the last decade — say, Michael Vick's dog-fighting scandal and O. J. Simpson's most recent criminal exploit — and then put a bow on it with the phrase "the decade in black America." What if I did the same thing with Jews? Bernie Madoff, the face of Jewish America! Do the scandals of Rod Blagojevich, Charlie Rangel, and John Edwards define the Democratic party from 2000 to 2010? Do Abu Ghraib and the balloon boy sum up America?

Consider NPR. As a brand, it claims to be standing athwart capitalism because it's "public." What that means exactly is a bit unclear, since it still allows corporations to fund its programming in exchange for audio endorsements none dare call commercials and relies on the kindness of listeners to keep it afloat — listeners who, one way or another, make their money from you-know-what.

Indeed, speaking of the decade in capitalism, National Public Radio failed to mention that Joan Kroc, widow of Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's, left more than $200 million to NPR in 2003. Mrs. Kroc's generosity of spirit was her own, but the wampum is all capitalism's, baby.

In a similar vein, the decade of capitalism saw one of the world's richest men, Warren Buffett, pledge more than $30 billion to a foundation created by another offspring of capitalism, Bill Gates, for the purpose of aiding the world's poor. Surely capitalism should get some of the credit, since the book on philanthropy in non-capitalist systems is shorter than the guide to cities without Starbucks.

Capitalism doesn't just create generous wealthy people, but generous poor people, too. Americans give twice as much to charity as the most generous European nations, and the most generous Americans are, in fact, poor Americans.

But forget philanthropy. Since 2000, hundreds of millions of people in China and India — home to a plurality of the world's poor — have lifted themselves out of poverty and illiteracy thanks to capitalism.

China started to embrace markets as a last resort in the late 1970s. And by last resort, I mean last resort. First they tried murdering tens of millions of their own people through collectivism and oppression. When that didn't work, they embraced markets, and the poverty rate dropped from 64 percent to around 8 percent today.

As it always does, capitalism drove innovation over the last decade. The BlackBerry was introduced in 1999, but the iPhone didn't exist in 2000, nor did the iPod. YouTube was a fantasy, and no one could even imagine why you'd ever need something like Facebook or Twitter (in fairness, some people still ask that question). iTunes was launched in 2003, and five years later it was outselling Wal-Mart as the No. 1 music retailer. Government-funded basic research in medical science deserves some credit for breakthroughs, but it's worth remembering that lots of countries invest in basic research. America, with its markets, stands alone as the leading, arguably sole, source of medical innovation. Breakthrough drugs are as American as apple pie.

Every good thing capitalism helps produce — from singing careers to cures for diseases to staggering charity —  is credited to some other sphere of our lives. Every problem with capitalism, meanwhile, is laid at her feet. Except the problems with capitalism — greed, theft, etc. — aren't capitalism's fault, they're humanity's. Socialist countries have greedy thieves, too.

Free markets are in disrepute these days, particularly by the people running Washington. For them, government is the solution and capitalism is the problem. If they have their way over the next decade, they won't cure what allegedly ails capitalism — people will still steal and lie — but they will impede everything that makes capitalism great. And that will be bad for everyone, even NPR.

Excellence!

I always love good examples of the irony of liberals who condemn capitalism nevertheless enjoying the benefits of it.  It amazes me that they don't see the connection between killing the golden goose and running out of golden eggs.

So, what do we make of this?  First, I think, we need to boldly defend capitalism.  Embrace it.  Love it.  Profit is a good thing, and a righteous incentive to innovate, develop, and produce.  It's what lifts the poor into the middle class, the middle class into the wealthy, and the wealthy into the sort of life that allows for the incoherent idiocy of liberalism.  In short, it's good for everyone.  Well, except for the incoherent idiocy of liberalism, but if we embrace capitalism, that probably won't be a big factor.  Regardless, let's not demonize it, and let's not accept such demonization from the snoots who are jealously guarding their own position as richer than you and I.

Second, I think we need to examine what happens when capitalism is knee-capped.  Though we're still largely a capitalist economy, we've been slowly moving toward a socialist system for a very long time, incrementally, with more and more government intervention and control.  Barack Obama blew away the incremental and slow parts, catapulting America headlong toward liberals' utopian vision of socialist Europe.  And what does that get us?  This headline of a recent Reuters story says it all:

U.S. growth prospects deemed bleak in new decade

Not the next year, mind you...the next decade.  Barack Obama's policies have, in just one year, debilitated a powerhouse mostly-capitalist economy to such an extent that economic forecasts are bleak for the next decade.  Can we snap out of the capitalist-bashing fog now, please?

And how about Europe?  How's their model going after decades of open socialism?  Hmmm:

...Germany, long considered the cornerstone of eurozone fiscal discipline, forecasts public debt at around 78 per cent of GDP this year, while in France, the second biggest eurozone economy, public debt jumped to a record 75.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2009.

Greece says its shortfall come to 120 per cent of output in 2010.

Debt is raising the cost of borrowing for many countries and adding to the weight of reimbursing obligations on future budgets.

With unemployment rising and weak growth expected in 2010, officials cannot count on increased tax revenues for much help in paying down debt, a lot of which is owed abroad.

"The (economic) crisis is weighing on the sustainability of public finances and potential growth," the EU commission has warned as economists leave open the possibility of a "double dip" recession this year...

They're in even worse shape than we are.

We really need to demand that fiscal sanity retake control of our nation.  It starts with the right attitudes, both in our own personal finances and in the national consciousness.  We have to display responsibility in ourselves, and demand the same from our elected leaders.

I think we're doing fairly well on the first part, as evidenced by a recent Rasmussen poll showing that 55% say it's better for California to go bankrupt than to get bailed out.  Normal people understand that in capitalism you should be rewarded for success, but you should also be punished for mismanagement, and that's exactly what is going on in California.

The second part is a much tougher nut to crack.  The bottom line is that we must deal with our elected reps accordingly, voting for those who do display fiscal responsibility and sending the rest home, regardless of party or tenure in Washington.  There's simply too much at stake not to take ownership of our country like this, and if we do not, our children and grandchildren will truly be the first generations to be worse off than their parents.  If things aren't brought under control soon, Barack Obama's epic fail of 2009 will last for years.

There's my two cents.

Today In Screw-The-American-People-Land DemCare

You aren't seeing the 'negotiations' taking place on DemCare because they're still being kept hidden (emphasis mine):

Speaking at a town hall meeting on August 21, 2008, in Chester, Virginia, then-candidate Barack Obama promised the American people: "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies … what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents … And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process." The participants around Obama's fictional big table may have changed depending on where he was speaking, but throughout his campaign the essential promise was always there: "negotiations televised on C-SPAN."

Of course, Obama already broke this promise to the American people months ago. According to PoliFact, the backroom deals Obama cut with drug companies and hospitals last July already violated this pledge. But those were just preliminary negotiations. Surely when it came time for the final health care bill passage in Congress, Obama and his allies would welcome some transparency into the process? No such luck.

Politico is reporting that President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will meet at the White House today (joined by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) via conference call) to set the parameters for reconciling the House and Senate versions of health care legislation. However, instead of proceeding with the usual public and open conference committee process, the White House is going to take a very active role in secret behind-closed-door meetings between the House and Senate. The Sunlight Foundation explains the implications for the American people: "Both House and Senate rules require that all conference committee meetings be open to the public unless a majority of conferees votes in open session to close the meetings. Senate rules require all conference committee reports be publicly available for at least 48 hours prior to a final vote. Without conference, there is no mechanism to provide for openness in the final discussions regarding the health care bill."

And there is plenty of reason the American people should demand transparency in the final stages of the legislative process. We previously identified Six Key Differences between the House and Senate bills, all of which deserve their own public debate. But one issue in particular is in desperate need of the disinfectant powers of sunlight: Sen. Ben Nelson's (D-NE) deal exempting Nebraska from the costs of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion.

Last week, after a group of 13 state attorneys general promised to file suit against Obamacare should the Nelson deal become law, Nelson called South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster to "call off the dogs." According to McMaster's office, Nelson said the deal was not his idea, was simply a "marker" placed in the bill, and that the issue would be fixed by extending the same Medicaid exemption to all states. Will the budget-busting Medicaid problem get "fixed" for all states? If so, how? The American people deserve to know.

There is more than one reason the American people have turned solidly against President Obama's health plan. Americans believe Obama's plan will increase their health care costs, decrease the quality of their health care, raise their taxes, and increase the deficit. And as former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has admitted, Obamacare is not real health care reform. No wonder President Obama wants as little public input as possible.

DemCare is the primary reason behind Obama's continuing decline in the polls, as well as the current ugly rating for Congress (emphasis mine):

Voters feel more strongly than ever that Congress is performing poorly and that most of its members are in it for themselves.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters now say Congress is doing a poor job. That's the highest negative finding since Rasmussen Reports began surveying on the question in November 2006.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 12% of voters believe Congress is doing a good or excellent job, the lowest total since the first of February last year.

Yep, secret partisan closed-door meetings about a fundamental overhaul of the American society and economy will do that.

Interestingly, now even C-SPAN is clamoring for Obama to fulfill his campaign promise:

In a letter to congressional leadership dated December 30, 2009, C-SPAN wrote:

As your respective chambers work to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate health care bills, C-SPAN requests that you open all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings, to electronic media coverage.

C-SPAN noted that it is willing to commit resources to cover all negotiations and that, to date, it has televised hundreds of hours of committee hearings for public access. More importantly, the network called on the President and congressional leadership to live up to their commitment to transparency:

President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation's editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation's health care system. Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American.

Even the mainstream media are picking up on this salient point. From an ABC News report:

The C-SPAN television network is calling on congressional leaders to open health care talks to cameras — something President Barack Obama promised as a candidate.

Instead the most critical negotiations on Obama's health plan have taken place behind closed doors, as Republicans repeatedly point out…

Obama pledged during a presidential debate in January 2008 that he would be "bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are."

It's high time he kept his pledge.

He won't.  He can't afford for any more exposure to this abomination than what already has been given.  They'll spring a new giant-sized bill (will this one be over 2,500 pages? 3,000?) at what they feel is the most opportune time to shove it through both houses of Congress again, and try to get it signed into law without giving the American people any chance to look at it or understand it.  I guarantee you no one outside of these private meetings will have any idea what's involved.

One other interesting aspect to consider: Massachusetts state Senator Scott Brown.  This Republican is within striking distance of the Democrat assumed-winner of Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate, Martha Coakley.  Out-financed and out-known, Brown is nevertheless closing well with some creative advertising and by harnessing the blogosphere in what could be a very interesting special election later this month.  It's a long shot, but if Brown should happen to pull it out, that would effectively break the 60-vote threshold that is holding together the Dems' precarious coalition of DemCare support.  If you live in Massachusetts, you need to check this out, and go vote.  If you don't live there, you can still send money to Brown's campaign as they enter the last couple of critical weeks before the election takes place. 

Boy, would it not be earth-shattering for Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat to be the back-breaker of DemCare?  Delicious...

There's my two cents.

It's Time For Some Self-Definition

RedState:

First, let's get this out of the way. The news today of Parker Griffith becoming a Republican is a huge blow for Nancy Pelosi and one that her own party is, tonight, blaming her for. It is an embarrassment to President Obama who, like Bill Clinton, is seeing conservative and independent minded people fleeing him as fast as possible.

But, on our side of the aisle, we need to ask, given that all Parker Griffith did was change the letter next to his name from a "D" to an "R", what exactly does it mean to be a Republican?

The GOP embraced him with open arms as one of us today. Should they have done so?

Compare that to the Democrats who are fighting Arlen Specter in the Democratic Primary in Pennsylvania after his party switch to the Democrats.

Parker Griffith may actually be a good Republican. He said he'd never vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker again. He voted against Obama. He voted against Cap and Trade. He has voted with the Republicans on a lot of issues, but he has still voted with Nancy Pelosi 80% of the time when you add up all the procedural votes, etc. that he has participated in.

So why do we now give him a pass. Changing the letter next to his name does not actually change him as a person or change his mind.

We may, in fact, decide that Griffith is the best we can do in AL-05. Several readers at RedState make this case, even though there is already a Republican running with the support of the local tea party movement in Alabama.

Like with so many candidates in so many places, we should not rely on the GOP inside Washington to tell us who is and is not worth supporting. All of us are able to make up our own minds.

But why give the guy a pass? Michael Steele, when Arlen Specter jumped to the Democrats, said it was because Arlen was putting his own political future ahead of the people he represented. Today, Steele praised Griffith's conversion.

People change all the time. Ronald Reagan started as a union boss and Democrat. He always said the Democratic Party left him, he did not leave the Democrats. We have to accept that people do change over time.

But in a year?! It was not even a year ago that Parker Griffith was sworn in as a Democrat and the GOP was attacking him, citing posts from RedState, as a mouthpiece for Nancy Pelosi. Come on. Are we really supposed to believe this guy isn't being a political opportunist? And if he is so ready and willing to switch so quickly to the GOP after the Democrats poured massive money into his district to get him elected in 2008, who is to say he is not later going to be a political opportunist of some kind against our side?

I've got no overarching problems with Parker Griffith. He is, after all, an LSU graduate so he has to be mostly redeemable. I do, however, think it should take more than switching the letter after your name to make you "one of us."

The GOP fell out of power largely because the public could no longer tell what the GOP stood for other than the acquisition of power. It caused them to get greedy, corrupt, and lazy. If anybody can be an R regardless of what they stand for — and I recognize than a New England Republican is necessarily different from a Southern Republican — why have the label at all?

At a minimum we need to think this through and not just be willing to go with the guy who has our preferred letter next to his name. When both party establishments have, over the past decade, set us on a course for creeping nanny state fascism and socialism, I am no longer prepared to accept that it is just politics.

At some point ideas matter most.

Rather than ideas, I'd phrase it as 'principles matter most'.  Therefore, we need to define some.  We can be a 'big-tent' party if we're based on principles rather than divisions.  It would be really simple, and it would go something like this:

"Anytime anyone agrees with us on any issue, you're in.  Welcome to the party!"

If we splinter off into one-issue constituencies like the Democrat party, then we'll have the same sort of catch-22 problems that the Dems face on DemCare right now, with one group saying they won't accept a bill with the public option and another group saying they won't accept a bill without a public option.  Despite have a supermajority, they haven't done nearly what they promised their constituencies because of the single issue in-fighting.  That's not the way to build lasting coalitions.

If the Republican party re-centers itself on a few key, core principles -- things like smaller government, fiscal responsibility, traditional family values, the primacy of the Constitution, lower taxes, (real) transparency, and energy independence, just to name a few possibilities -- around which there will be no compromise, many people will join up most of the time.

Think about it this way.  Most people aren't down-the-line liberal or down-the-line conservative.  Life has a way of coloring your perspective on things as you go along.  Maybe you're gay but pro-life.  Maybe you're fiscally conservative but a big environmentalist.  Maybe you're a national security hawk but against the 2nd Amendment.  Everyone is a different mix of positions on different issues.  So, people generally vote on the balance of things.  If they lean left on a couple issues but are generally more to the right, they'll go with the candidate or party that most closely reflects that view, and vice versa.

The first step is to define what it means to be a Republican.  What do we stand for?  No one knows right now, because the general impression of the GOP is small government, fiscally responsible, and strong on defense.  We got the defense part pretty well, but the other two?  Puh-lease!  Diet Democrats is a far more accurate description - the same thing, just not quite as much kick to it.  As a party, the GOP has morphed into a vaporous blob that no one really likes or understands, and certainly doesn't trust.  This is where those core principles come in.  If the GOP drops the anchor on a few key principles and proves -- through actions, not just words -- that they will stick to them no matter what (which is another area of GOP failure lately), they'll attract a lot of followers, partly because those core principles are generally reflected in the population at large and partly because there's nothing like clarity to reveal the real differences between the parties.

This is what we need right now.  This is what America needs right now.  It's right there for the taking...will the current GOP leadership do it?  No.  They're the ones who got us into this mess in the first place.  We need new leaders with clean records and new enthusiasm.  We need a clear, concise message based on core principles addressing major issues.  With these two things in place we throw open the gates, and anyone who agrees with us on any of these core principles is welcome to join us at any time.

There won't be a tent big enough to hold everyone.

There's my two cents.

Horrendous Foreign Policy

It's a shame:

Within twenty-four hours of the terrorist trying to blow up the plane, the White House was giving briefings by a "Senior Administration Official" who mostly like was Obama, Axelrod, or Jarrett, pointing out that the terrorist watch list was created by the Bush administration.

Then the White House Counsel's Office sent out a memo demanding any and all documentation to show that the Bush administration had done worse.

Then the White House decided it needed to look into the "systemic failures" of the operation that George Bush had put in place.

234 days into George W. Bush's first contentious year in office, four planes were hijacked and used as missiles to strike the United States. Shortly thereafter, Richard Reid tried to blow up another jet.

George Bush never tried to disown 9/11 or Richard Reid. He never tried to say, "hey, it was Clinton's problem." Sure, in fact, a lot of what led to 9/11 happened on Bill Clinton's watch and he failed in most every measure to shut down Al Qaeda.

But after 9/11, George Bush didn't spend his first day, second day, or third day blaming Clinton. He set out to destroy Al Qaeda. After Richard Reid, we've been pretty darn safe flying.

In fact, under George Bush leading scholars and pundits declared Al Qaeda marginalized. By 2003, the pontiffs of miasmatic beltway wisdom were near unanimous that Al Qaeda was near dismantled.

You really need to read this editorial in the London Telegraph by Toby Harnden. It really hits this point where it needs hitting.

For a man who campaigned denouncing the politicisation of national security under President George W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama's treatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.

His White House recognised its political vulnerability more readily than it comprehended the level of danger faced by Americans.

That last bit is the most troubling part of this.

At the end of the first year of Barack Obama's administration, there's something moving in the shadows of Mount Doom. It wasn't there while George Bush was in charge. But Barack Obama is no George Bush. And the strategy of blaming Bush for being weak on terror will not work after eight years of blaming Bush for being too bloodthirsty.

But they're sure going to give it a good hard try.

This is probably one of the most dangerous aspects of Barack Obama's inexperience and naivete - he is completely, utterly in over his head.  He has no will whatsoever to defend America or Americans, and our enemies know it.  That's why we have seen one foreign policy blunder and failure after another, and that's why our enemies are preparing to strike despite Obama's protests and 'tough' rhetoric.  Ultimately, anything the Obama administration does is more likely to hinder America than our enemies.

For example, the U.K. knew about the undie bomber and this particular scenario 3 years ago, and the Obama administration knew about it back in October (I heard on the radio today that the U.K. passed along his name specifically to the U.S. because they suspected he would attempt this precise attack).  And due to unthinking knee-jerk reactions to things like this, we will now be subjected to a complete invasion of privacy through full-body scans, despite the fact that they have already been proven ineffective against explosives packed into body cavities (and yes, that has already been done in an attempted assassination of a Saudi official).  God forbid we do something that would actually cut down on terrorism, like profiling in airports!  Now that would be terrible!

Perhaps even more dangerous is the bigger strategic failure that Obama is perpetrating.  For example, now Iran is giving the U.S. deadlines with which to comply to their demands!  My, what a reversal a new administration makes!  I shudder to think about what happens when Obama complies...

And, by the way, Democrats are now saying it is 'taking pot-shots' at a President to point out failures in 'the system'.  This is from the same person -- Claire-Bear McCaskill -- who accused Bush of 'killing black people on rooftops' after Hurricane Katrina.  Mm-hmmm.  The really interesting part of this particular whine is that this is the same system that George W. Bush put in place, and that successfully stopped more than one attack while Bush was in office, including a 2006 London-based attempt to hijack multiple planes (but none of the terrorists even got near a plane).  What's the difference between 2006 and 2009?  As far as I can tell, just the administration running 'the system'.

Obama's weakness has even had a detrimental effect on conflicts that were previously well in hand - since Barack Obama took over the leadership of the U.S. military, deaths in Afghanistan have nearly doubled.  And this was the war that Obama said was the 'real' war, remember?  The one that he promised to win rather than be 'distracted' by Iraq?  Nicely done.  It's really something when you can steal defeat from the jaws of victory.

And what about the threat posed by Russia?  Remember how Obama backed away from our allies in Eastern Europe who were begging for our missile shield to protect themselves from Russian aggression?  At the time, the Right speculated that for the cave-in we got zippo in return.  Now we know that is the case since Russia has announced that they're going to go ahead with weapons development.  Nice tough diplomacy.  Well done.

And what happens when one of our foreign CIA posts gets taken out?  Barack Obama blames the CIA and hands our enemies -- the same terrorists who killed those American CIA operatives -- a major PR victory.  That kind of thing will only end in more death and attacks against Americans.

Maybe it's not so much incompetence or weakness so much as it is a permanent vacation:

An interesting piece from Politico's Ben Smith and Carol Lee examines the mentality inside the Hawaiian White House that led to the administration's inept response to the Christmas Day attack, but there's one line in particular that jumped out at me:

Aides also say Obama wouldn't necessarily be working more on the issue if he were back in Washington.

Obama has probably played some 30+ rounds of golf at this point (he'd played 24 rounds just 9 months into his first term; it took Bush nearly three years to play that many), he exercises religiously; he plays basketball, he has time to pick up awards in Oslo, make Olympic pitches in Copenhagen, and hold beer summits at the White House. It's getting hard to tell whether this administration is in permanent campaign mode or on a permanent vacation. Either way, Obama's aides can do better than telling the press that Obama is working just as hard on the golf courses of Hawaii as he would be in Washington.

Still, there are emergencies that interrupt a vacation, even for Obama:

But the listlessness of an initial response remains a puzzle, coming as it did during the same week Obama rushed off of the golf course in the middle of a game, his presidential motorcade screaming down a Hawaii highway at top speed to deliver one of his golf partners to the house where the friend's son had cut his chin on a surfboard.

Is the problem an immense weakness, general obliviousness, or is it just a steadfast refusal to take responsibility?  Is it complete naivete, or perhaps the ultimate revealing of the radical Leftist inability to govern in a real world with real threats?

It seems to me that, just as Barack Obama views taxpayer dollars as Monopoly money to be played with, he views dangerous tyrants and suicidal maniacs as simple children throwing tantrums who can be soothed with his sonorous voice.

Whatever it is, it is horrendous foreign policy, and that makes it truly dangerous.  As long as Barack Obama is dictating U.S. foreign policy, the world will be more dangerous to Americans, wherever they may be.

There's my two cents.

The Eeeeeevil Bush Secrecy Is Gone...

...to be replaced by the even more secretive Obama secrecy:

A shiny new executive order as of 29DEC09

I'm still working slogging my way through this monstrosity of an EO consisting of twisty/twisting/twisted little mazes trying to digest it and figure out what it all means.

Here's what I've found so far that I'm 100% sure of:

-- There's a 10 year "default" on declassifying classified info unless a longer time frame was specified and justified.

-- Unclassified information may BECOME classified upon submission of a FOIA request for it...thus allowing for a public veneer of openness while reserving the right to clam up if said openness should prove inconvenient when someone actually learns of a document's existence and has the nerve to request it.

Its a very lengthy and tortuously worded EO and people will be analyzing its ramifications for quite a while I suspect. I don't imagine the professional intelligence community is terribly happy about the Byzantine procedures outlined here. Their jobs just got a lot harder.

Nifty.

There's my two cents.

The State Of Israel

As long-time readers of this blog know, I try to keep up a bit with things going on in Israel.  The latest news isn't particularly encouraging:

As if dozens of jihadis wearing suicide underwear wasn't enough of a problem for the US and the world, the Israelis remind us today of an even bigger threat about to reach maturation.  The Iranians will have the technical capability to build a nuclear weapon within weeks, and will have one completed by 2011, according to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak:

Iran will possess the technology to build a nuclear bomb by early 2010 and be able to produce one the following year, Israeli media quoted Israel's defense minister as saying Monday.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak delivered his assessment before the Israeli parliament's defense and foreign affairs committee. It broadly matches assessments from other nations including the U.S., which estimates that Tehran could produce a nuclear weapon between 2010 and 2015.

Also of note is the fact that -- for the first time EVER -- Israel has recalled all of its ambassadors for discussions of how to handle the various threats it faces 2010, especially Iran.  What's going on?  The consensus seems to be that Israel is seriously contemplating a preemptive strike against Iran before Iran launches a nuclear weapon.  Given the Obama administration's obvious reluctance to take Israel's side on anything other than rhetoric, it isn't much of a stretch to see a preemptive strike as being unacceptable.  Even if Obama doesn't come down hard on Israel for it, all he has to do is remain neutral in the ensuing confrontation, and Israel will be on their own.

As you may or may not know, I look to Joel Rosenberg for an up-close-and-personal expert look at Israeli happenings.  Here are a few of his recent posts on the subject:

Putin stays put in Russia

In chapter seven of my 2006 non-fiction book, Epicenter, I encourage readers to watch for this future headline: "A CZAR RISES IN RUSSIA, RAISING FEARS OF A NEW COLD WAR," and specifically suggest readers watch for Vladimir Putin to attempt to stay in power far beyond 2008.

On page 101, I wrote: "Putin has repeatedly promised he will not attempt to extend his stay in office beyond 2008….But how seriously should Putin's many pledges be taken?…Now in his fifties, Putin is still a young man, at the top of his game, with no professional experience of any kind other than being a KGB-trained suppressor of dissidents and a rising political leader….[Russians] are looking for a strong hand to rule, and Putin is providing just that."

"Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in power for over 10 years, ruled out a departure from politics on Thursday, telling a questioner: 'Don't hold your breath.' The country's most powerful leader made the comment with a smile when asked on his annual televised question and answer session with the Russian people if he would like to leave politics and start a quiet life.

"Putin, 57, also said he 'will think about' taking part in the 2012 presidential election, when many Russians expect him to return to the Kremlin for a six-year term."…

Iran, Syria sign defense pact

"Iran and Syria signed a defense agreement on Friday," reports the Jerusalem Post. "The document, signed by Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi and his Syrian counterpart Ali Mohammad Habib Mahmoud, aimed to face 'common enemies and challenges.'….Vahidi praised Syria's great potential in the defense and military fields and said that 'it is natural for a country like Syria — which has an inhumane and menacing predator like Israel in its neighborhood — to be always prepared [against possible foreign aggression].' His visit to Syria comes a week after Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, also visited Damascus. Iran's treaty with Syria comes just as Western countries are warning Teheran that if it fails to respond to overtures intended to make its nuclear program transparent, it will face sanctions."

Obama hostile to Israel

Israeli overwhelmingly continue to feel President Obama is hostile to the Jewish State. In fact, according to a new poll published in Ha'aretz, only 13% of Israeli say the President is "not hostile" to Israel.

2009 was a 'quiet' year

One year ago today, Israeli Defense Forces were engaged in Operation Cast Lead, a long overdue offensive into Gaza to stop Hamas from firing thousands of rockets and mortars at innocent Jewish civilians in southern Israel.

As 2009 comes to an end, the assessment of Israeli security services is that the operation was very successful. The IDF severely damaged Hamas, bringing such attacks almost to an end. The IDF — along with Bibi Netanyahu's election and new policy of retaliating for every single Hamas attack, not just the ones that cause damage, injury or death to Israel — also restored an important measure of deterrance. Terrorists now know once again that Israel will hit back, and hit back hard, something they hadn't believed during the years of the Olmert administration.

• "For the first time this decade, no suicide attacks were carried out this year."
• "The number of those [Israelis] wounded in [other kinds of] attacks also dropped, with 15 killed compared to 36 in 2008."
• "In 2009, just 566 rockets from Gaza were fired into Israel, mostly in January during the IDF operation, compared to 2,048 launched in 2008."

For more on the state of the Epicenter, click here.

A divided Jerusalem

The battle to divide Jerusalem is intensifying this week. Sweden is pushing hard to pass an initiative to persuade 27 foreign ministers of European Union states to endorse a plan to recognize unilaterally East Jerusalem as the capital of a new Palestinian State. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is doing everything he can to counter the Swedish effort.

Of course, there are Biblical aspects to this effort:

In 2 Chronicles 6:6, the Lord says, "I have chosen Jerusalem that My Name might be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel."

The Bible also teaches that the Lord will judge the nations who seek to divide Israel and Jerusalem. In Joel 3:1-2, we read, "When I restore the fortunes of Jerusalem [in the last days] I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Then I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of My people and My inheritance Israel whom they have scattered among the nations and they have divided up My land."

All of this builds layer upon layer in the case that we are heading toward a new world war as prophesied in the Bible.  During a time of relative peace and security in Israel, they will be attacked by a massive coalition of forces, including Russia (led by a powerful dictator), Iran, and several other Arab nations (like Syria).  Israel will have no help from anyone.  Keep in mind that prophecy is inherently tricky and deceptive, and no one truly knows the dates and times of such things.  All we can do is watch for the signs, and the things above are all sign posts.  Following prophecy is like traveling West on I-70 toward California, and passing sign after sign that indicates you're still on the right road going in the right direction, but none of the signs ever show how many miles are left until you get there.  It's all guesswork...but as more and more of the pieces fall into place, one should rightly start paying more and more attention.

All of the posts you see above have much more detail in them about all of this, and how they fall into line with the Biblical prophecy.  If you haven't yet delved into the subject, I would highly encourage you to do so, in these posts or in Rosenberg's book Epicenter.  This is world-changing stuff, both on a global scale and on a personal one.

Think about it, and pay attention.

There's my two cents.

New Year, New Humor

Here are a few chucklers to get your year started off right. First, we have some military-style inspirational posters:








Sweet!

Here are the latest gems from Michael Ramirez:



Happy 2010 to you!

Another Egregious Obama National Security Failure

It's just about enough to make one vomit:

So mind-bendingly insane is this that I thought Roggio might have been duped by his sources. Not so: Both the Guardian and now Jake Tapper have independently confirmed that it's true. Remember Qais Khazali? We wrote about him a bunch in early 2007. He used to be an al-Sadr deputy, then broke away and hooked up with Iran to start his own little mini-Hezbollah. That group, the "League of the Righteous," ended up pulling off one of the most notorious, sophisticated anti-American operations of the Iraq war in Karbala. The toll: Five Americans murdered, four of them after they were kidnapped, bound, and shot in the head like animals. U.S. troops caught up to Khazali two months later and captured him and his brother; the ID cards of several dead American soldiers were recovered at the scene. No less a figure than David Petraeus went on to blame the Karbala raid squarely on Khazali's outfit and accused Iran's Quds Force — the creme de la creme of the Revolutionary Guard, responsible for assisting Iranian proxy jihadis like Hezbollah in other countries — of bankrolling the whole thing.

And now, after three years in U.S. custody, he's free.

"We let a very dangerous man go, a man whose hands are stained with US and Iraqi blood," a military officer said. "We are going to pay for this in the future."

The US military has maintained that the release of members and leaders of the League of the Righteous is related to a reconciliation agreement between the terror group and the Iraqi government, but some US military officers disagree.

"The official line is the release of Qazali is about reconciliation, but in reality this was a prisoner swap," a military intelligence official said…

"This was a deal signed and sealed in British and American blood," a US military officer told The Long War Journal. "We freed all of their leaders and operatives; they [the League of the Righteous] executed their hostages and sent them back in body bags. And we're supposed to be happy about it."

The idea that this was a prisoner swap was confirmed by multiple sources.

Hot Air raises the mind-bogglingly obvious question:

Security agreement or no security agreement, why is The One agreeing to spring a guy whom we know is guilty of murdering American soldiers? He's a clear threat to troops in the field, and not just in Karbala: Tapper cites documents recovered during his capture that point to his responsibility for upwards of 20 attacks in various cities. Surely the Iraqis aren't about to kick us out of the country if we politely decline their request to parole a terrorist mastermind. How many jihadis do we have to release before someone figures out that releasing jihadis is an exceedingly bad idea?

Another question on my mind: is this an example of deliberate and foolish capitulation, or is this phenomenal naivete?

Does it matter?

As long as Barack Obama remains in charge of U.S. foreign policy, the world is more dangerous to Americans because of his actions.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
The Left's permanent war on the War on Terrorism

Top 10 Foreign Policy Blunders

Courtesy of the inexperienced, incompetent, and narcissistic Barack Obama:

2009 was the worst year for American foreign policy since the Carter administration. At the Telegraph, Nile Gardiner reminds us of Barack Obama's top ten foreign policy follies of the year. It promises to be the most depressing of the many top-ten lists we'll read between now and New Year's. Gardiner provides links and cites chapter and verse, so his article should be read in its entirety. But here's the list:

1. Surrendering to Russia over missile defence.
2. Appeasing the mullahs of Iran.
3. Ending the war on terror.
4. Announcing a surge while declaring an exit.
5. Apologizing to France for America's "arrogance."
6. Giving DVDs to the British Prime Minister.
7. Siding with Marxists in Honduras.
8. Bowing to emperors and kings.
9. Embracing genocidal killers in Sudan.
10. Throwing Churchill out of the White House.

It's been a long year.

Yeah...the next three years are going to be long, too.

There's my two cents.

Economic Insanity Continues, Part 2

Ah, what's new?  While Obama berates Wall Street and his pay czar dictates how much private businessmen can earn, he's simultaneously giving millions to CEOs of companies that he prefers (and, coincidentally, knocked over the first few dominoes of 2008's economic meltdown):

The two chief executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could get paid as much as $6 million for 2009, despite the companies' dismal performances this year which cost taxpayers more than $100 billion.

Fannie's CEO, Michael Williams, and Freddie CEO Charles "Ed" Haldeman Jr. each will receive $900,000 in salary, $3.1 million in deferred payments next year and another $2 million if they meet certain performance goals, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.

Oh, and there's more:

While most of us were at home waiting for Santa and his reindeer to arrive, a gift arrived for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as the Obama Administration lifted caps on how much bailout money they can receive from the U.S. Treasury. The old limits for the firms, both of which are under federal conservatorship, had been set at $200 billion each, though all concerned understood these were fictions. The new limits are… well, there are no new limits (which might be scored as a gain for transparency, at least). Moreover, requirements that the two shrink their portfolios were watered down.

Here's how a different report put it, making things more simply:

The Obama administration pledged Thursday to provide unlimited financial assistance to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, an eleventh-hour move that allows the government to exceed the current $400 billion cap on emergency aid without seeking permission from a bailout-weary Congress.

The Christmas Eve announcement by the Treasury Department means that it can continue to run the companies, which were seized last year, as arms of the government for the rest of President Obama's current term.

But even as the administration was making this open-ended financial commitment, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac disclosed that they had received approval from their federal regulator to pay $42 million in Wall Street-style compensation packages to 12 top executives for 2009.

Nice.  So, the leaders of these companies are granted millions for failing in their leadership, and the companies that should properly be bankrupt are being funded with a blank check from the federal government (translation: your taxpayer dollars).  Is anyone else getting a warm fuzzy feeling yet?

Coincidentally, most Americans now believe that Obama's 'stimulus' plan actually hurt the economy, a steady increase from the week it was signed into law.

Heritage posts a bunch of terrific charts displaying the economic carnage unleashed by Barack Obama and his radical Leftist agenda.  Among them are these:

Show of hands for everyone who thinks this is good economic leadership?

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Flashback: Obama in 2008 promising 'every penny' of TARP would go back to taxpayers
Another boondoggle bailout

Higher Gun Sales = Safer Cities

A friend forwarded me this excellent article you will almost certainly not hear in the mainstream media:

Last week, the FBI issued its preliminary 2009 crime report, showing that the number of murders in the first half of 2009 decreased 10 percent compared to the first half of 2008. If the trend holds for the remainder of 2009, it will be the single greatest one-year decrease in the number of murders since at least 1960, the earliest year for which national data are available through the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Also, the per capita murder rate for 2009 will be 51 percent lower than the all-time high recorded in 1991, and it will be the lowest rate since 1963—a 46-year low. Final figures for 2009 will be released by the FBI next year.

According to gun control supporter dogma—"more guns means more crime"—the number of privately owned firearms must have decreased 10 percent in 2009. To the contrary, however, the number rose between 1.5 and 2 percent, to an all-time high. For the better part of the last 15 months, firearms, ammunition, and "large" ammunition magazines have been sold in what appear to be record quantities. And, the firearms that were most commonly purchased in 2009 are those that gun control supporters most want to be banned—AR-15s, similar semi-automatic rifles, and handguns designed for defense. The National Shooting Sports Foundation already estimates record ammunition sales in 2009, dominated by .223 Remington, 7.62x39mm, 9mm and other calibers widely favored for defensive purposes.

Yes, remember Barack Obama, Gun Salesman of the Year?

This is the thing that liberals just can't understand - they think that more guns in the hands of more people will inevitably lead to more crime.  Reality begs to differ, however, proving that more guns in the hands of more people equals less crime.  That's because the criminals will get their guns illegally, no matter what.  They're off the grid.  And, they are not as likely to commit crimes against people they think might be armed.  Duh.  Thus, more guns in the hands of normal, law-abiding people means a reduction in crime.  It's simple common sense, but to a liberal it's utterly incomprehensible.

That reminds me, I need to go get some more shells.  Maybe I'll pick up a new gun, too.

There's my two cents.


PS - thanks to Scott for the link!

Economic Insanity Continues, Part 1

More economic insanity in the form of three shockers -- SHOCKERS -- for your head banging pleasure.

Shocker #1: Yet another government intervention failure

The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.

Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people but has largely failed to provide permanent relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes.

As a result, desperate homeowners have sent payments to banks in often-futile efforts to keep their homes, which some see as wasting dollars they could have saved in preparation for moving to cheaper rental residences. Some borrowers have seen their credit tarnished while falsely assuming that loan modifications involved no negative reports to credit agencies.

Some experts argue the program has impeded economic recovery by delaying a wrenching yet cleansing process through which borrowers give up unaffordable homes and banks fully reckon with their disastrous bets on real estate, enabling money to flow more freely through the financial system.

“The choice we appear to be making is trying to modify our way out of this, which has the effect of lengthening the crisis,” said Kevin Katari, managing member of Watershed Asset Management, a San Francisco-based hedge fund. “We have simply slowed the foreclosure pipeline, with people staying in houses they are ultimately not going to be able to afford anyway.

Hot Air says thus:

Gee, who could have predicted this? Oh, yeah … me, and plenty of other people who wondered how a temporary modification would solve the permanent problem of living with a loan that one could not afford.

The danger of foreclosures will be extended, and now people have fewer resources with which to recover. The only option left for government intervention is to buy the mortgages and forgive part of the principal, which essentially means that all of us will wind up paying for homes we couldn’t afford, either — and which we were smart enough not to buy. That will also encourage more irrational risk-taking in the future, as people will assume that the federal government will once again pick up the tab if failure looms again.

What? An entitlement program whose irresponsible recipients act irresponsible? Shocker!

Shocker #2: Cash for Caulkers a giant waste of taxpayer dollars

Efficiency like that is just SHOCKING!

Shocker #3: Obama loses more jobs in 1 year than any other President in modern history

As we look back over 2009 we can now report that Barack Obama lost more jobs in his first year in office than any president in modern history. Barack Obama lost over 4 million jobs alone since his failed stimulus was passed in February.
USA Today reported:

Even before Barack Obama took the oath of office, his economic advisers projected that without hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending, the U.S. economy could lose another 3 million to 4 million jobs on top of the 3.1 million lost in 2008.

It turns out they were optimistic. Even with the $787 billion stimulus package that Obama signed in February, more than 4 million jobs have been lost in 2009, the worst year for job losses since World War II. The jobless rate that advisers projected would peak at 8% has topped 10%.

And it took him until December to hold a jobs summit to address the problem.

And Doug Ross reports that things are likely to get much worse before they get better.

I don't know about you, but given Obama's campaign rhetoric about creating jobs and jobs being his number one priority, I'm just shocked -- SHOCKED -- at the fact that he has failed on this most important of issues.

New year, same ol' economic insanity.

There's my two cents.