The Cap-N-Tax Mistake

Two EPA lawyers produced a video warning of the dangers of Obama's cap-n-tax legislation. They were forced to remove the video from their website, but others have posted it elsewhere since. Heritage doesn't endorse their idea of carbon taxes, but says their analysis of cap-n-tax is 'dead on':

Some related information that might be of interest to you is that the people who created the idea of cap-n-tax admit that it won't control carbon. Also, links to explanations and examples of why carbon credits are nothing but a scam, go here, here, here, here, and here.

This cap-n-tax legislation is all about 'green jobs', right? Let's look at how that plan has worked for other nations around the world that have tried it:

Our first stop takes us to Germany where think tank Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung just released its study on the economic impacts of the country’s green energy initiative. Commissioned by the Institute for Energy Research (IER), the report finds with per worker subsidies for solar industry jobs are as high as $240,000. Last year, “the price mark-up attributable to the government’s support for “green” electricity was about 2.2 cents US per kWh. For perspective, a 2.2 cent per kWh increase here in the US would amount to an average 19.4% increase in consumer’s electricity bills.” Government subsidies for wind and solar are projected to be over $100 billion from 2000-2010 and, to make matters worse, as the subsidies run out, so do the jobs.

Our next stop on the trip brings us to Denmark, and if you don’t mind a brief layover in Oslo, you’ll receive a complementary Nobel Peace prize. President Obama stresses we should be more like Denmark since 20 percent of the nation’s electricity comes from wind power. But is that really the case? According to a study from the Danish Centre for Political Studies (CEPOS), also commissioned by IER, the road to increased wind power is less traveled for a reason. The study refutes the claim that Denmark generates 20 percent of its power from wind stating that its high intermittency not only leads to new challenges to balance the supply and demand of electricity, but also provides less electricity consumption than assumed. The new study says, “wind power has recently (2006) met as little as 5% of Denmark’s annual electricity consumption with an average over the last five years of 9.7%.” Furthermore, the wind energy Denmark exports to its northern neighbors, Sweden and Norway, does little to reduce carbon dioxide emissions because the energy it replaces is carbon neutral. The study goes on to say that absent of government subsidies, Denmark would be absent a wind industry.

The third and final destination on our green energy tour takes us to Spain, another country Obama says the U.S. should replicate when it comes to energy policy, saying, “they’re making real investments in renewable energy.” But real investments aren’t necessarily good investments. Another IER-commissioned study coming out of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid by Gabriel Calzada found that, for every green job created, 2.2 jobs in other sectors have been destroyed. Furthermore, Spain’s government spent $758,471 to create each green job and used $36 billion in taxpayer money to invest in wind, solar, and mini-hydro from 2000-2008.

The bottom line is that the principles behind cap-n-tax are blown up by every basic economics course. Because of these violations...

...with cap and trade Congress is mandating higher energy prices and killing many more jobs throughout the process. Consumers spend less. Businesses, faced with higher prices, are forced to make production cuts and reduce labor or they will move to another country where the costs of operation are cheaper without cap and trade and renewable energy mandates. Our analysis of the proposed green energy economy will destroy 1.9 million jobs in 2012 and 2.5 million by 2035 – after accounting for the green jobs created.

Reality proves this entire philosophy just doesn't work.

We need to prevent Obama and his Democrats from succeeding in this legislation.

There's my two cents.

Happy Birthday, Marines!

And thank you!

A Bit More On Fort Hood Massacre

First, let's look at what we know.
- back in May 2008, we were given warnings of homegrown radical Islamic terrorist attacks
- Hasan attended the same mosque as two of the 9/11 hijackers
- intelligence organizations knew he was trying to contact Al Qaeda
- Barack Obama doesn't care about any of that:

President B. Hussein Obama: Let's Not "Jump to Conclusions" on Hassan, But Oh, By the Way, Those "Tea-Bag People" are "Extremists"

Keeping an eye on the real terrorists (that would be you).

Mr. Obama, during his private pep talk to Democrats, recognized Mr. Owens election and then posed a question to the other lawmakers. According to Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who supports the health care bill, the president asked, “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” Democratic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”

Maybe if Janet Napolitano hadn't been spending so much time scrutinizing "tea-bag people" she could have connected the dots on the worst domestic terrorism since 9/11.

The political correctness of the Army is what enabled this man to not only remain in the Army, but to be on a fast track to higher rank. Ralph Peters explains:

On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting "Allahu Akbar!" committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam.

What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting.

This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it’s an act of terror. Period.

When the terrorist posts anti-American hate-speech on the Web; apparently praises suicide bombers and uses his own name; loudly criticizes US policies; argues (as a psychiatrist, no less) with his military patients over the worth of their sacrifices; refuses, in the name of Islam, to be photographed with female colleagues; lists his nationality as "Palestinian" in a Muslim spouse-matching program, and parades around central Texas in a fundamentalist playsuit — well, it only seems fair to call this terrorist an "Islamist terrorist."

But the president won’t. Despite his promise to get to all the facts. Because there’s no such thing as "Islamist terrorism" in ObamaWorld.

And the Army won’t. Because its senior leaders are so sick with political correctness that pandering to America-haters is safer than calling terrorism "terrorism." ...

Hasan isn’t the sole guilty party. The US Army’s unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Ft. Hood.

Given the myriad warning signs, it’s appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command, either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Ft. Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.

Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would’ve been gone with the simoon. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities. ...

How could the Army allow an obviously incompetent and dysfunctional psychiatrist to treat our troubled soldiers returning from war? An Islamist whacko is counseled for arguing with veterans who’ve been assigned to his care? And he’s not removed from duty? What planet does the Army live on?

For the first time since I joined the Army in 1976, I’m ashamed of its dereliction of duty. The chain of command protected a budding terrorist who was waving one red flag after another. Because it was safer for careers than doing something about him. ...

...when do we, the American public, knock off the PC nonsense?

Unfortunately, it looks like it's not happening yet:

Whereas the Old Army specialized in killing our nation's enemies, today's New Army specializes in diversity:

The general said that while what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, "I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here."
"And it's not just about Muslims," he said. "We have a very diverse Army. We have a very diverse society. And that gives us all strength. So again, we need to be very careful with that."

Diversity is our strength, until it kills us.

*sigh*

Political correctness -- and the liberals who obsess about it -- is a fatal mistake for America to indulge, and it must stop.

There's my two cents.

More American Hostages In Iran

Heritage:

Last week Heritage scholar James Carafano wrote:

It is not hard to craft comparisons between Jimmy Carter and the current occupant of the Oval Office. Both entered office with high expectations; both vowed to change the tone in Washington and remake the world. Carter had a terrible sophomore slump. America’s enemies took stock of his foreign policy in his first year in office. The next year they exploited the weaknesses they found. His presidency never recovered. Obama may also be setting himself up for the fall.

This week, the Associated Press reports:

A senior Iranian prosecutor accused three Americans detained on the border with Iraq of espionage on Monday, the first signal that Tehran intends to put them on trial.

The move could set up the Americans — who relatives say were hiking and strayed across the border from Iraq — as potential bargaining chips in Iran’s standoff with the West. The announcement came as Washington and Tehran were maneuvering over a deadlock in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

I pity these people because their government doesn't have the will or spine to fight on their behalf. Obama appears much more comfortable apologizing for Americans rather than protecting them.

There's my two cents.

Awesome: Not Only Have We Lost Millions Of Jobs In A Year, We're Going To Keep Losing Jobs For Many Years More

AP:

US unemployment, now in the double digits, may remain "high" for several years and dampen economy recovery from a brutal recession, a regional central bank official warned Tuesday.

The United States had experienced so-called jobless recoveries following the previous two recessions in 1991 and 2001, when job creation remained weak for several years following the business cycle trough.

"In both cases, output growth was less robust than in the typical recovery and, unfortunately, things seem to be shaping up similarly this time around," said Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Unemployment jumped to double digits in October for the first time since 1983, reaching 10.2 percent, although job losses narrowed to 190,000, the government said last week.

Um...first of all, that thing about a 'jobless recovery' is a load of crap.  Second, Yellen's statement about jobless recoveries is also crap.  Unemployment through both Clinton's and Bush's terms in office averaged just over 5%. 

While this completely inaccurate introduction may prompt one to disregard the entire rest of the article, don't be hasty.  There's still a lot worth digesting here.  For example:

President Barack Obama called the numbers "sobering" and said his administration was considering "further steps" to spark job growth.

Translation: another stimulus is likely on the way.  If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you already knew that.  God help us if he succeeds (though given what he's already done to the country, another trillion dollars may not make much of a difference)!

Yellen said overall economic recovery was likely to be gradual and "remain vulnerable to shocks" as weakness of the commercial property market combined with the muted outlook for housing and consumer spending.

"With such a slow rebound, unemployment could well stay high for several years to come. In other words, our recovery is likely to feel like something well short of good times," Yellen said.

The bottom line is that Obots are beginning the process of setting expectations for high unemployment indefinitely.  Why?  Because Obama is injecting socialist principles into every facet of America, which will inevitably lead to the retardation of growth and economic prosperity.  He's re-making America into Europe, in other words (they've had double-digit unemployment for decades).  If they can successfully force Americans to accept this state of economic retardation, they will remove the single largest complaint about what they are doing, and the single most effective weapon that conservatives have in re-taking the House, Senate, and White House in the coming years.

Resist!

Along these same lines, I came across a website today (via WND) that has some very disturbing numbers on the unemployment rate.  Shadow Government Statistics posts the following:

The explanation:

The true rate of unemployment for October 2009 may be 22.1 percent, not the 10.2 percent reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.

Unemployment at 22.1 percent, if accurate, would be at numbers not seen since peak unemployment during the 1973 to 1975 recession.

Economist John Williams ... estimates that the peak of unemployment in nonfarm unemployment in the Great Depression of the 1930s would, by his methodology, have registered at 34 to 35 percent in 1933.

So, how does the Obama administration get away with reporting the lower unemployment percentage?

Corsi explained that the Clinton administration changed the way BLS calculates unemployment statistics by excluding "discouraged workers," those who had given up looking for a job because there were no jobs to be found.

Since the Clinton years, discouraged workers looking for a job for more than one year are not counted as "unemployed" because they are considered to have dropped out of the labor force.

The BLS still includes in "U6 Unemployment" calculations short-term discouraged workers, as long as they have been looking for a job less than one year.

This definition permits the Obama administration to under-report "U3 unemployment" at 10.2 percent when real unemployment as calculated before the Clinton administration redefinition is twice that amount, Red Alert contends, and U6 unemployment lies somewhere in between.

To be fair, I know nothing about ShadowStats.com, and WND can get a bit fruity from time to time.  However, we've already discussed the whole discourged workers phenomenon, so we know that's legitimate; thus, this was worthy of posting.

Regardless of what the actual number is, I think we can all agree that it is too high, and shows no sign of ending its climb.  These level-setting statements are a disturbing forecast of what the government is planning on in the future, and thus would like you to believe.

There's my two cents.

All You Need To Know On ObamaKennedyDeathCare...From A Liberal

Wall Street Journal (emphasis mine):

The typical argument for ObamaCare is that it will offer better medical care for everyone and cost less to do it, but occasionally a supporter lets the mask slip and reveals the real political motivation. So let's give credit to John Cassidy, part of the left-wing stable at the New Yorker, who wrote last week on its Web site that "it's important to be clear about what the reform amounts to."

Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. "The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment," he writes. "Let's not pretend that it isn't a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won't. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind."

Why are they doing it? Because, according to Mr. Cassidy, ObamaCare serves the twin goals of "making the United States a more equitable country" and furthering the Democrats' "political calculus." In other words, the purpose is to further redistribute income by putting health care further under government control, and in the process making the middle class more dependent on government. As the party of government, Democrats will benefit over the long run.

This explains why Nancy Pelosi is willing to risk the seats of so many Blue Dog Democrats by forcing such an unpopular bill through Congress on a narrow, partisan vote: You have to break a few eggs to make a permanent welfare state. As Mr. Cassidy concludes, "Putting on my amateur historian's cap, I might even claim that some subterfuge is historically necessary to get great reforms enacted."

No wonder many Americans are upset. They know they are being lied to about ObamaCare, and they know they are going to be stuck with the bill.

Pass this one around.  A lot.

There's my two cents.

Bush, Vs. Obama: The Quiz

Randall Hoven posts an excellent comparison at American Thinker:

1. President Bush was famous for lacking "intellectual curiosity," while President Obama has been called "the smartest guy ever to become President." Who reads more books: Bush or Obama?

2. Bush was often considered to be in the grip of Big Oil. In contrast, Obama is a Harvard-educated lawyer. Which industry contributed more than five times as much as the other to politicians: the oil & gas industry, or lawyers/law firms?

3. Bush's Christian faith was at the core of his political identity, and he was considered to be in the grip of the "religious right," while Obama is considered more open-minded. In fact, Obama has said, "my faith is one that admits some doubt." Which one refers to Jesus more in public speeches?

4. Bush was criticized for excessive federal spending and running up huge deficits.  Bush's deficit in 2008 was the largest in history.  In fact, President Obama said,

It's a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they've presided over a doubling of the national debt ... What I won't do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place.

Whose deficit was more than triple the size of the other's: Bush's in 2008 or Obama's in 2009?

5. While Obama criticized Bush for "a doubling of the national debt," the federal debt held by the public went from 35.1% of GDP in 2000 to 40.8% of GDP in 2008 -- an increase of 16% as of fraction of GDP. What is it expected to be in 2016 under Obama's budget plan? 

6.  Obama criticized Bush for Guantanamo, military tribunals, wiretaps, troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and "signing statements." Which one of these Bush practices has Obama ended?

And the answers:

1. Bush. Obama started reading a book in April and had not finished it by June, putting him on a pace of no more than ten books per year. Bush read forty to ninety-five books a year while President, not counting a new and complete reading of the Bible every year. Bush scored 1206 on his SAT, putting his IQ in the 125-130 range, smarter than 95% of the population and in the company of Lincoln, Rousseau, and Thackeray. He graduated from Yale and earned an MBA from Harvard. Obama earned a law degree from Harvard, but has not released any of his academic records. Despite what you might have heard, we know nothing of his IQ, test scores, or grades from any of the schools he attended.

2. Law firms. In the 2010 cycle so far, Lawyers/Law Firms have contributed $33,779,866 (81% to Democrats), and the Oil & Gas industry has contributed $6,293,631 (34% to Democrats). In the 2008 cycle, the numbers were $233,499,989 (76% to Dems) from lawyers and $35,564,322 (23% to Dems). In all, lawyers contributed about six times more to politicians than the Oil & Gas industry.

3. Obama. Per Eamon Javers at Politico, "As president, Barack Obama has mentioned Jesus Christ in a number of high-profile public speeches -- something his predecessor George W. Bush rarely did in such settings."

4. Obama's 2009 deficit, the largest in U.S. history. It was more than three times that of Bush's record 2008 deficit. Per the Congressional Budget Office, the 2008 deficit was $455 B, and the 2009 deficit was $1,417 B. As a fraction of GDP, it was the largest deficit since 1945.

5.  The CBO expects the debt held by the public to be 77.1% of GDP in 2016 under Obama's plan, or an increase of 89% as a fraction of GDP, and the highest level since 1950. 

6. None.

• Guantanamo is still open and probably will be into 2010, maybe longer.
• Obama is keeping military tribunals and clandestine wiretapping programs.
• Obama plans to keep most troops in Iraq until the summer of 2010.  Even then, he is talking of keeping about 50,000 troops there (compared to about 124,000 now). The number of US troops in Afghanistan increased from 37,000 in January 2009 to 62,000 by August 2009, and Obama is expected to send over 30,000 more. Total number of US troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan has increased under Obama so far (from about 184,000 in January to 186,000 in September).
• Obama has used signing statements himself.

Very illuminating, don't you think?  For what it's worth.

There's my two cents.

Your Government At Its Finest

This is a great case study of what happens when the government brutes its way through people's freedoms and warps the Constitution:

Susette Kelo, above, fought to keep her little, pink house in New London, Conn. for years, as the local government teamed up with a big business to muscle local homeowners off their property through eminent domain. The local government promised her property to Pfizer, so the company could put a new facility next to the land it already owned. Kelo took her case all the way to the Supreme Court, as her house became a lonely symbol as other neighborhood families were forced to give up the fight, because the government had the luxury of power and patience. When the Supreme Court ruled against Kelo, arguing that Pfizer's promise to bring revenue and jobs to New London constituted "public use," her house was demolished.

But today Pfizer has announced that they will not be using the land the government forced homeowners off of. Oops:

The private homes New London, Conn., took through eminent domain from Suzette Kelo and others, are torn down now, but Pfizer has just announced that it is closing up shop at the research facility that led to the condemnation.

Leading drugmakers Pfizer and Wyeth have merged, and as a result, are trimming some jobs. That includes axing the 1,400 jobs at their sparkling new research & development facility in New London.

To lure those jobs to New London a decade ago, the local government promised to demolish the older residential neighborhood adjacent to the land Pfizer was buying for next-to-nothing. Suzette Kelo fought the taking to the Supreme Court, and lost, as five justices said this redvelopment met the constitutional hurdle of "public use."

Well, the public certainly was used.

The point to take away from all this is that if this sort of thing could happen to Susette Kelo, it could happen to you. Hit the link above to watch a video reporting on the entire story.

John Adams addressed this very thing long, long ago:

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If `Thou shalt not covet' and `Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free."

If your property -- that which you OWN -- is taken away from you by the government by force due to purely political reasons, it is tyranny, even if it is in America.

This is what happens when the inefficient, incompetent, politically correct government is given too much power.

There's my two cents.

ObamaKennedyDeathCare Fallout

In the wake of Pelosi's bludgeoning of the bill through the House, the fireworks are really starting to go off.

The biggest stumbling block to passing the bill was abortion. As we discussed yesterday, Pelosi had to resort to the Stupak amendment, which was a distinctly pro-life measure that pro-choicers really didn't like. Remember this?

Pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak led a coalition of dozens of Dems who refused to sign on if there wasn't specific language to prevent federal dollars from being used to fund abortion. Without these Dems, Pelosi lacked the votes she needed to pass the overall bill. Stupak offered an amendment to lock things down, and it passed easily with wide bipartisan support. The problem is that this amendment gave enough Dems cover that they could say they were still pro-life while still allowing them to support ObamaKennedyDeathCare. It could end up being one of those things where they say, "I voted against taxpayer funding for abortion before I voted for it." Of course, the catch is that it is very likely that this provision will get stripped out by the Dem leadership while in committee, so it will not actually see the light of a real day. We'll see, but this could have been a very strategic blunder by those who seek real pro-life protections.

Well, it didn't take long to get that suspicion confirmed:

The President of Planned Parenthood agrees.

Philip Klein has some interesting analysis on those who voted for it before voting against it:

Following Saturday night's vote, I posted a list of the 42 members of the House who voted for the Stupak amendment to bar taxpayer funding for abortions and then in favor of the main bill. In the list below, I've narrowed it down to 16 members who specifically cited the anti-abortion language in their subsequent press statements explaining their final votes. Keep in mind that the final vote was 220 to 215, and if Nancy Pelosi would have lost any three of these members without picking up support elsewhere, she would not have been able to pass the bill. And while it's true, as some have argued, that Pelosi may have released some vulnerable Democrats to vote against the bill once she secured enough votes, it's unlikely that if she had sufficient support to pass the bill without the anti-abortion language, that she would have risked the fierce backlash among pro-choicers. Today, 41 Democrats vowed to vote against the final bill if the Stupak language isn't stripped.

Indeed, this is the conundrum facing the Democrat leadership in Congress:

Pelosi could not have obtained the votes to pass the bill without including the stringent anti-abortion wording contained in the Stupak Amendment. And if the amendment were stripped out in conference (assuming the Senate passes something), Pelosi would lose these necessary votes. No Stupak Amendment, no passage.

But, the Stupak Amendment was anathema to the liberal base of the Democratic Party, which regards women's reproductive rights (i.e., access to abortion) as a core principle. Pelosi prevailed on Democrats last Saturday night to swallow that bitter pill in order to pass the bill, through a combination of arm-twisting, and nods and winks that the Amendment would be dropped later.

In order to pass something, so that she and Obama could claim an "historic moment," Pelosi planted an abortion land mine.

That land mine has exploded. Starting with rumblings from the left-wing blogs, the liberal Democratic base has taken up arms over the Stupak Amendment. Now Democratic House members are in full revolt, with over 40 members signing on to a letter that they would not vote in favor of any post-conference bill which contained the Stupak Amendment language.

Obama, with his usual emotional and political distance, is not taking sides on the Stupak Amendment.

Rather than pass reform in small steps, starting with issues on which there was widespread agreement, Pelosi and Obama have embarked on an "historic" attempt to remake one-sixth of the economy in one fell swoop.

In so doing, Pelosi and Obama have surrounded themselves with themselves again. And it is blowing up in their political faces.

Let's hope it causes fatal damage.

Finally, I leave you with this brilliant snippet from Rep. Peter Roskam about just how awesome this government plan really is:

Hot Air adds:

Why can’t they answer? They can’t. They need to force people into the system in order to spread the costs more evenly to everyone, which is why the House took the blatantly unconstitutional path of federal mandates for health insurance. They want to solve a problem involving 13% of the American population by burdening the 87% that doesn’t have the problem at all, rather than looking for a way to reduce health-care costs for 100%.

... Statism always requires force, and it always strips people of liberty. It always comes with handcuffs. That’s how we know it’s coming.

Facts? History? Common sense? The Democrat leadership runs from these things as far and as fast as possible. But, if ignorance allows ObamaKennedyDeathCare to become law, the handcuffs will prove them in a hurry. Unfortunately, it will be too late to do anything about it.

There's my two cents.

The Fall Of The Wall

Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall came down, essentially marking the end of the Cold War and the fall of Communism in the world. It was a day of freedom, both in the literal and the figurative sense. The freedom-loving people of the world rejoiced.

Liberals joined hands with the ousted Communists, grumbling and gritting their teeth.

Here's one of the central figures of the day:

We don't know where the world would be today without Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, but I shudder to think about it. Most of America seems to agree, with fully 93% saying this was an historical event.

Too bad President Barack Obama disagrees:

World leaders -- and Germans in particular -- aren't happy that Obama is snubbing this momentous occasion. Der Spiegel reports that he's too busy. The truth, however, is a lot less excusable, as Michelle Malkin explains:

President Obama isn’t traveling abroad to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago today.

Of course not. There’s nothing in it for his Chicago cronies.

Also: There’s nothing for America to apologize for there today.

Sad but true.

After taking considerable political heat for the snub, Obama apparently conceded...a bit:

There is a fallacy in the theory of evolution, often cautioned against, to imagine evolution as one long "march of progress" in which every mutation and selection works, teleologically, to produce the supreme form of being (that would be us). It's a vanity science has no use of.

On the other hand, there is Obama. 100,000 years of human history have unfolded in just this precisely-right way to contrive in his person the Ultimate Man.

There is no agenda of Obama; rather, physics and history have an agenda leading us to Obama.

The universe has conspired benevolently to bring us him.

...

Did He Not Show Up Because It Wasn't All About Him? Left-wing German paper Der Spiegel seems to have gotten that impression:

There was one world leader absent for today’s commemorations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Surprisingly enough, it’s President Barack Obama, who found time last year to give a campaign speech there last year, which Der Spiegel summed up as “People of the World, Look at Me”.

The White House has cited a packed schedule, though looking at it he had nothing much on yesterday (brief chat to reporters about healthcare – by far his biggest priority) and just blah briefings and a bill signing today until a metting this evening with Benjamin Netanyahu. This time, Der Spiegel has reported it as “Barack Too Busy”.

Pretty much at this point he'll only be traveling to pick up awards.

He offered a speech to the crowd via video, but I'm not aware if it was even a live broadcast. But, as usual, he spoke more about himself than Germany or the Wall.

As we discussed long ago, Barack Obama has voluntarily given up the mantle of leader of the free world. It is sad, disturbing, and vile, but it is nevertheless the truth.

In the meantime, the rest of us can be thankful for the strength and character of the Gipper and the Iron Lady for bringing down Communism without firing a single shot. History was made on this day 20 years ago because of their steadfast efforts, and not even the failures of our current President can erase the freedom of millions of people because of them.

There's my two cents.

Speaking Of Taxes

As a follow-up to my last post, I thought I'd share with you something that Sec. of State Hillary Clinton said during a recent visit to Pakistan:

"The percentage of taxes on GDP is among the lowest in the world…We (the US) tax everything that moves and doesn't move, and that's not what we see in Pakistan,"

Yeah, we've noticed. The problem is, as we've already demonstrated, this idea that liberals love so much -- taxing 'everything that moves and doesn't move' -- is completely destructive.

But, it's what they do. At least she's admitting it out loud. Now, if only there was a press corps to report it in America...

There's my two cents.

Escape From...

The Wall Street Journal brings us a stark warning:

Between 2000 and 2008, the Empire State [New York] had a net domestic outflow of more than 1.5 million, the biggest exodus of any state, with most hailing from New York City. The departures also have perilous budget consequences, since they tend to include residents who are better off than those arriving. Statewide, departing families have income levels 13% higher than those moving in, while in New York County (home of Manhattan) the differential was even more severe. Those moving elsewhere had an average income of $93,264, some 28% higher than the $72,726 earned by those coming in.

In 2006 alone, that swap meant the state lost $4.3 billion in taxpayer income. Add that up from 2001 through 2008, and it translates into annual net income losses somewhere near $30 billion. That trend is part of a larger march for New York: In 1950 the state accounted for 19% of all Americans, but by 2000 that number had fallen to 7%.

Why do I bring this up? I'm sure you've already figured it out:

Liberals continue to insist that they can raise taxes ever higher without any effect on behavior, but the New York study is one more piece of evidence that this is a destructive illusion.

New York is an absolutely perfect example of what will happen if liberals succeed in raising taxes to where they want them - basically, as high as possible. While it may seem 'fair' to people with more ignorance than sense, it is the absolute worst possible thing this country can experience.

Right now, the top 1% of the nation pays 40% of all income taxes. The top 10% pays 71% of all income taxes. Those aren't the 'rich', either. The cutoff for the top 10% is just $113,000. That's your average dual-income family, give or take a little.

So, as tax rates skyrocket due to liberal policies, those at the very top with tons of money will leave. New York proves this beyond doubt. When the very top of the pyramid disappears, taking their 40% of all income taxes with them, what happens next? Everyone else who's left will suddenly have to make up that gigantic chunk of change.

Speaking of which, the only way to avoid this scenario from playing out right before our eyes is to force a change in the leadership in Washington. We're stuck with Obama for the next three years (though I seriously doubt he'll last beyond that, if things continue as they have over his first year), but the House and Senate can change dramatically in just one year.

Now that's some change I can get behind.

We may be able to escape from New York to another state with lower taxes right now, but if these liberals get their way, there will be no escape left in America.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Who pays taxes (and how much) in 2007...and pie vs. flame

Bush Schools The Obamessiah On Being Presidential

Rory Cooper at NRO explains:

This past weekend, Americans were treated to two completely different profiles in class. First there was former president George W. Bush. On Friday night, George and Laura Bush traveled by car to Fort Hood to meet with the devastated families of last week's tragedy. They specifically asked the base commander not to alert the press, and spent hours simply doing what they could to comfort the grief-stricken families.

The story was eventually uncovered, as these moments tend to be, but clearly President Bush did not see this as a personal opportunity, nor did he want to upstage the current president. The former president saw his interactions with wounded soldiers and their families as private moments.

Twenty-four hours later, President Obama was not at Fort Hood, but rather on Capitol Hill lobbying a private meeting of Democrats, who must not have known his position on health care. Obama told the lawmakers, according to Democratic congressman Earl Blumenauer in the New York Times: "Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit [Democratic voters] and it will encourage the extremists."

Let's dissect that statement. First, President Obama incorrectly states that conservatives are "anti-government," which simply is untrue. Conservatives are in favor of the government's performing its duties efficiently and effectively. Conservatives are not in favor of the government's running a new national health-care entitlement that will surely fail. (The House passed a bill that costs $2.4 trillion, raises taxes by $700 billion, and massively expands a bankrupt Medicaid program — all while the nation's unemployment rate stands above 10 percent.)

More disturbing is President Obama's labeling his opposition as "extremists" and falling just short of using the profane "teabag" epithet that is popular among dismissive liberals. This is simply beneath the office he holds. When tens of thousands of multigenerational families descended onto Capitol Hill last week, they were protesting runaway federal spending and government control. They understood that while reform of our health-care system is necessary, the answer is not to compound the problem while ignoring uninsured Americans. These are not extreme views.

President Obama won a short-lived victory this weekend on health care, but he clearly misread the tea leaves if he believes that conservative Democrats will get more support in their home districts for supporting this disastrous plan. These electoral matters are not helped by the president's demonization of a respectful and vigilant opposition to this government intrusion into their lives.

While President Bush was at Fort Hood consoling the victims of real radical extremism, President Obama was in Washington calling American families who don't support his health-care plan "extremists." A more enlightening profile of the two men could not be found.

No, indeed.

There's my two cents.

$25 Billion In Stimulus = 0 Jobs

Just the latest example of how the 'stimulus' was an utter failure:

When Nancy Pelosi pushed Porkulus through on a party-line vote in the House and Harry Reid could only get three Republicans in the Senate, the GOP opposed the bill because it wouldn't stimulate a nymphomaniac stripper on a Friday night.  The bill almost entirely consisted of nothing more than a laundry list of Democratic pork and progressive wish lists that had been circulating around Capitol Hill for years.  The Washington Post highlights one of the most prominent of the Porkulus programs, a $25 billion "energy efficiency" program that proves the point:

In Baltimore, the 300 block of East 23 1/2 Street is getting patched up in time for winter. One economic stimulus program is paying to insulate 11 rental rowhouses, another is paying for furnaces and a third is covering the cost for reflective roofs to be installed by prison inmates in a job-training program.

The block is part of one of the biggest initiatives ever undertaken by the federal government, a nationwide push to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. But as the national unemployment rate crosses into the double digits and Republicans question the stimulus program's impact, the work on East 23 1/2 — even with all of its activity — has so far not produced a single job.

Nine months after Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus package, there is little tangible to show for one of its biggest single areas of investment, the $25 billion energy-efficiency effort. That points to one of the central tensions of President Obama's landmark stimulus package: His goal was to inject money quickly into the economy while at the same time laying the groundwork for his broader, transformational agenda on energy, education and health care.

The Post doesn't have that quite right.  This program and its zero-jobs output shows that Obama intended to lay the groundwork for a broad progressive agenda that would have the federal government eating up more capital and assuming greater power over the lives of Americans.  Not even Obama could sell this as an injection of cash into the economy. Most of the money went to states, which have mainly held onto it while they study the best way to build their bureaucracies on "energy efficiency."

In fact, the entire issue of "efficiency" is rather ironic in this context.  We spent $25 billion on this project from an appropriation intended to create jobs now, not four years from now when the private sector would have already recovered — especially if it had been allowed to keep more of its own money for investment in its own infrastructure.  With a total of zero jobs created, the efficiency of this project can be measured in only the most microscopic of terms.

We call this bill Porkulus for a reason.  With the exception of the targeted tax breaks, which the Democrats only included to entice rightly skeptical Republicans, nothing in this bill had anything to do with job stimulation.  It had everything to do with paying off Democratic special interests and funding pet projects of progressives.  The picture used by the Washington Post shows the seriousness of the effort: the big visual of this project is people installing reflectors on roofs.  We would have done better to burn the $25 billion for the heat.

Well, let me clarify - this was a complete failure to create jobs and stimulate the economy.  In terms of government action, the only thing that can be done to actually stimulate the economy is to get out of the way and let the American people do their thing.  However, as we've discussed many times before, the real purpose of the stimulus was to flood the coffers of liberal constituencies and buy people off.  At this, it's been a smashing success.

Here's my concern now: how will the Right combat the jobs numbers next year?  If you look at how much of that stimulus money has actually been spent, it's a very small fraction of it.  I suspect that they'll start dumping taxpayer dollars into specific businesses and projects next year -- just in time for the election -- that actually do create some jobs, at least temporarily.  The Right is hollering, 'Where are the jobs?!' all over the place right now, and rightly so.  But, what happens next year when that flood of cash actually does create some jobs?  With hundreds of billions of dollars to peddle, even liberal Democrats are going to be able to stumble bass-ackwards over a few jobs, and that's going to start driving down the unemployment rate, even if it's only for a few months in the run-up to the election.  So, how is the Right going to combat this?

It concerns me that there isn't anyone (that I've seen) out there talking about this on a regular basis.  I realize we have to fight today's fight today, but if we start relying on today's argument when tomorrow comes, well, we're going to suddenly find ourselves a step behind again.

I think the Right needs to continue beating the jobs drum, but we also need to begin the construction of an overall picture of just how much control the government is taking from private industry and American citizens, and just how much freedom has been lost already.  The jobs numbers are critical, of course, but they are actually the result (not the cause) of policies that take responsibility, freedom, and control out of the hands of American citizens and place it in the hands of corrupt bureaucrats in Washington.  We need to start talking about the causes now.

There's my two cents.

The Irresponsible Fed

Ace of Spades:

We all knew about TARP, where over 700 Billion taxpayer dollars were used with little oversight to "prevent a Depression !!!"

Now the AP reports that the Treasury actually had access to 6 times that amount, with zero oversight.

At the peak of the financial crisis, taxpayer money guaranteed assets worth $4.3 trillion to help banks ride out the panic. The programs, which essentially provided insurance against losses, helped stabilize financial markets but put far more taxpayer dollars at risk than Congress intended, according to the Congressional Oversight Panel.

Many would say these actions saved the economy. There is an argument to be made there, and make no mistake, that debate will be forefront in next year's elections.

What isn't debatable is that there were many draconian steps taken, and many instances like this where the assets of a relative few were not only uniquely protected, but given a risk-free return on investment while the average investors had to take their lumps in the open market.

For example, when a major money market mutual fund threatened to "break the buck" last year, the Treasury Department temporarily guaranteed its assets to reassure investors that their money was safe. The actions spared investors the downside of their risk while allowing them to earn better returns than they would have in a normal deposit account.

In an ideal world, When the government steps in it can do great good, but only in very specific and targeted directions. And only so long as it is a transparent process that does not arbitrarily pick favorites at the expense of others.

We don't live in an ideal world like that, and we never will. The government simply should not be involved in the private sector, as the potential downside is absolutely disastrous.

In this case, the worst that could have happened was a stealth quadrupling of the Trillion-plus deficit we currently toil under.

Imagine what effect that would have on the U.S. and the World economies.

This is the same government that we're supposed to trust with health care, energy, and everything else! And if we don't give them the ability to controll all of that, they'll just take it from us whenever they feel like it.

Makes you feel good, doesn't it? Really, really optimistic about our future.

There's my two cents.

Laying Things Out

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air lays things out pretty well on ObamaKennedyDeathCare, so I thought I'd post it here, too:

The Democrats wheedled, cajoled, begged, and finally abandoned its defense of abortion — truly a watershed moment — in order to get their version of ObamaCare passed … in the House of Representatives, where they enjoy a 75-seat majority. In the end, they could only muster a five-vote win on Nancy Pelosi’s bill out of that strong majority. Until this week, most had assumed that any ObamaCare bill would pass the House easily, but that the fight would be in the Senate.

So what does this 220-215 vote tell us? Capitol Hill Democrats know that this bill is an albatross. It’s true that Pelosi was able at the end to negotiate votes to allow a few at-risk Democrats that supported the bill to oppose it in the final vote, but even that tells a tale of fear and consciousness of unpopularity. The razor-thin vote, as well as a number of earlier, more sincere defections, show that this bill was a radical and expensive approach to fix a 13% problem — and even most of the Democrats know it.

Now the focus swings to the Senate, where Harry Reid will have to gain supermajorities at least twice to allow the bill to proceed to a final vote. That seems unlikely, although not impossible. The process will slow down considerably from the jam-down Pelosi conducted in the lower chamber, perhaps even to a crawl if Tom Coburn makes good on his threat to have the bill read in its entirety on the Senate floor. That will leave plenty of time for ObamaCare opponents to find all of the taxes, mandates, and government intrusions that will make it even less popular as it sits in the Senate. Even before Coburn’s threat, Democrats had pushed expectations for the bill out to late January — which makes the politics of the bill even more fraught for Democrats, at the start of an election year.

Democrats have another problem, even in the House. The Senate is not considering the Pelosi plan, but one they wrote themselves. Unless Reid pulls his own bill out of consideration and substitutes Pelosi’s — which is a possibility — that sets up a conference committee and second vote in each chamber, assuming that the Senate passes anything at all. If that happens, a conference committee will have to meet to produce another bill that would then go for a full floor vote in each chamber. If abortion funding makes its way back into the bill, or if mandates or taxes increase, or if conscience protections get stripped, then all of the hurdles that Pelosi barely cleared the first time return, and without the ability to amend the bill (conference reports get straight up-or-down votes without amendments in order to have both chambers pass identical legislation for the President to sign.) That means another shot at a filibuster and a lengthy bill reading in the Senate, and at least a chance to hold Bart Stupak’s pro-life coalition in the House under the spotlight to find out whether they will vote their conscience or bow to Pelosi.

We always thought the fight was in the Senate, so the only real surprise yesterday was how weak Pelosi actually was on ObamaCare. Our focus now has to shift to those red-state Senators who will have to explain to voters their potential support of a bill that imposes unconstitutional mandates and trillions of dollars in new costs on a government that can’t pay its bills now. And in this case, we’ll only need two of them to stop the runaway tyranny of the Democratic agenda.

I don't recall who first put together this flowchart, but it's outstanding; I wanted to re-post it as a reminder:


If the Senate agrees with the House, this will be your process for seeing a doctor.

All you fellow Nazi, terrorist, mobsters: gird your loins! It's going to get rough, and we're playing for all the marbles now.

There's my two cents.

U.S. House Makes War On American Health Care

Without question, the biggest news of the weekend is the fact that the House of Representatives passed ObamaKennedyDeathCare, 220-215. Gateway Pundit posts the EXACT thing I thought of when I saw the headline:

Fortunately, he saved me the trouble of pulling the clips myself. I wonder how many of these people will be voted into retirement next year and regret this applause-worthy 'accomplishment'. I wonder how many of them will drop their own platinum-plated health care coverage to join the rest of us peons -- mere citizens -- in the plan they have just forced upon us. Oh wait, they've already addressed that - none.

Anyway, here's how it happened. Working all day Saturday, Pelosi managed to pull it off by throwing one of their most sacred cows under the bus: abortion. Kind of.

Pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak led a coalition of dozens of Dems who refused to sign on if there wasn't specific language to prevent federal dollars from being used to fund abortion. Without these Dems, Pelosi lacked the votes she needed to pass the overall bill. Stupak offered an amendment to lock things down, and it passed easily with wide bipartisan support. The problem is that this amendment gave enough Dems cover that they could say they were still pro-life while still allowing them to support ObamaKennedyDeathCare. It could end up being one of those things where they say, "I voted against taxpayer funding for abortion before I voted for it." Of course, the catch is that it is very likely that this provision will get stripped out by the Dem leadership while in committee, so it will not actually see the light of a real day. We'll see, but this could have been a very strategic blunder by those who seek real pro-life protections.

The only Republican to support this abomination is Louisiana Rep. Joseph Cao. Here's a note about what he was thinking:

The man never claimed to be a fully committed economic conservative. He represents a district that is about 75 percent Democrat and 62 percent black (or thereabouts). He SAID ALL ALONG, FOR MONTHS, that he would probably vote for health care reform if it included strong pro-life language such as the Stupak Amendment. He stuck to his guns, even though his district is not majority pro-life. He is a traditionalist Catholic, former Jesuit seminarian, and he stands up for the principles he holds dear, one of which is the sanctity of innocent life. He is willing to lose his office on behalf of that pro-life stance. ...

He also represents a district that is fundamentally liberal. Congressmen have two roles: they are delegates, meaning their voters delegate to them the ability to use their judgment on complicated policy matters; and they are representatives, meaning they are there, specifically, to represent the will of their constituents. Serving in Congress is often a balancing act: When your district slightly favors one course of action but you strongly favor the opposite, you do what you believe and try to explain to your constituents why you bucked their wishes. That is being a delegate. But when you are ambivalent about an issue, even slightly against a course of action but only slightly, and your constituents STRONGLY favor the course of action, then your responsibility is to accurately reflect -- to REPRESENT -- the will of your constituents and vote in favor.

As Cao is no expert on things economic, and believes that something has to be done for the uninsured, and is neither convinced that the Pelosi bill is the right approach but ALSO not convinced that it is wrong, he then felt an obligation to act as a representative. There is no shame in that.

Eh, maybe, maybe not. I still don't understand how anyone who values the American health care system or economy can support this dog of a bill, for any number of reasons. Cao's vote also offers the Dems their desperately wished-for label of 'bipartisan'. Thanks for that. Unfortunately, there won't be much about the bipartisan opposition to this thing, with 39 Dems voting no. Speaking of which, it's worth a look at those 39 Dems and draw some conclusions:

...all but five of them came from districts that either McCain won, or that had voted Republican up until 2008., Tellingly, six of the last were from former Republican districts and won their seats by less than five points – in several cases, by less than a point. Tuesday’s election results had to have had an extra impact there.

All but 14 are classed as “Blue Dogs”.

Remember – this is a 39 vote swing in a chamber with a 75 vote Democrat majority. Passing Pelosicare should have been as simple as counting the votes.

Why the swing? Why did Nancy Pelosi come five votes from failing?

Because of you. You turned out at town halls and tea parties. You endured the insults and the mockery of the misbegotten “elites”. You flipped a big group bird at the “conventional wisdom”. And you almost pulled off the impossible – turning a near-supermajority against itself.

Don’t think the Senate – where we need two votes – is paying attention?

Oh, yes, they are.

Philip Klein offers a very interesting analysis that this may not have been quite the tremendous victory that Pelosi and the Dems are boasting it is:

...tonight's victory of a mere five votes, came at a tremendous cost for the House leadership and may eventually help doom the entire effort. In order to get over the top, Democrats had to agree to pass an amendment that would bar taxpayer funding for abortion. The measure is strongly opposed by pro-choicers, and Planned Parenthood has vowed to fight it. While pro-choice Democrats voted for the bill tonight to keep the process moving forward, they did so under the assumption that they could strip it from the bill once the House goes into negotiations with the Senate. If the measure gets stripped, suddenly there's a risk of pro-life Democrats dropping their support of the final bill. And considering that the measure only passed by five votes, Nancy Pelosi cannot afford to shed more than a handful of members. Also keep in mind that because 64 Democrats voted in favor of the Stupak anti-abortion amendment, it means that should it get stripped from the bill, Republicans will be on firm ground arguing that the remaining legislation allows taxpayer funding for abortion. Yet if Pelosi maintains the pro-life language, it's hard to see how staunch pro-choicers support the final bill, and suddenly you could see defections of liberals.

And of course, all of this assumes that some sort of bill passes the Senate. Yet if it was this heavy of a lift in the House -- where it's supposed to be easy for the majority party to ram things through -- it suddenly looks like a daunting task to get to 60 votes in the Senate.

And that's where the last big battle will be fought. Get ready, because it's coming.

So, let's take a look at the Senate. There's already a big problem or two:

Outstanding! Lindsey Graham is calling the House bill 'dead on arrival' already. Perhaps the biggest obstacle in the Senate is 'Dr. No', Tom Coburn (emphasis mine):

Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn is an old-school conservative, and an old-school Senator. How traditional can Dr. Coburn get? Politico reports that Coburn wants to read Harry Reid’s ObamaCare bill before he casts a vote on it — and to make sure he has the time to do it, Coburn plans to force the bill to be read in its entirety on the Senate floor:

Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who developed a close friendship with President Obama when they served together in the Senate, is threatening to have the entire health care bill read on the Senate floor.

Senior Senate Democratic aides had heard Coburn was considering having potentially thousands of pages read aloud in effort to stall passage. “If he did this it would be even outrageous for a guy who’s become known as Dr. No around here,” one of them told POLITICO.

Coburn’s office confirmed that he is indeed thinking about having the bill read.

This could create even more problems for Harry Reid in getting the bill out the door. Unlike in the House, Reid hasn’t been able to do a jam-down on his version of ObamaCare. While a few Democrats still hold out hope for action on the bill by Christmas, some are now setting a target of the State of the Union address at the end of January as more realistic.

If Coburn and other Republicans force floor readings of the bill, that may drift into March or April. If Coburn insists on a floor reading every time the bill gets amended, it may be summertime before they can get around to it. The Senate has other business to conduct, which would interrupt floor readings that would take at least several straight days of floor time to complete for a bill that will run into the thousands of pages. And all it takes is one Senator to withhold the unanimous consent necessary to dispense with floor readings.

In effect, it would allow Coburn to have the bill filibuster itself.

Publicity stunt? Sure. But Coburn’s action would give people plenty of time to find the ridiculous aspects of a bill that would quasi-nationalize 1/6th of the American economy — its reach, its taxes, its mandates, and its intrusion onto the personal choices and freedoms of Americans. The more people have seen these bills, the less they have liked them. That’s why Pelosi’s trying to jam down her bill this weekend, and why Reid can’t afford to let anyone read his bill, let alone the Senate clerk doing it aloud.

My only problem with this is: why is Coburn the only Senator thinking about doing this? I am ashamed of the Republican party that there aren't half a dozen conservative Senators out there saying point blank that this is what they're going to do. To me, it's a sign of just how far to the Left the Republican party has gone that only one guy is fighting something like this.

I hope and pray that Coburn follows through, because it could be the only thing that punts this abomination down the road enough that the American people can get even more hopped up about it than they already are. I'd also like to see a return of his previous amendment that would force every Rep and Senator to join whatever the final legislation dictates to the rest of us. Pass that one provision, and I will bet you $3 trillion it will die a very quick death.

So, back to my theory from last fall - the radical Leftists who are now running the American government had three main legs in their takeover (i.e. 're-making') of this great nation:

1. financial industry
2. health care
3. energy

The first phase was largely completed with TARP, the 'stimulus' package, and historically unprecedented new spending. The House has now passed both of the other two measures, narrowly. The only hurdle left to preventing these anti-American radicals from completing their re-making project is the Senate. Two votes are all that stands between 230+ years of responsibility, limited government, and historically unmatched prosperity, and the destruction of the United States of America as we know it.

Oh sure, the country will still exist. But, it will mirror Europe - perpetually high unemployment, crippling taxation on the productive members of society, no will or ability to defend its people from attacks or aggressors, political correctness trumping common sense and justice, and government interference in every facet of life you can imagine.

We are at a turning point in the history of our nation, and the world. I hope and pray we turn the right direction.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Democrats sold their party's reproductive soul

Fun & Frivolity: Vader Conducts And Legal Oddities

First, we have an illuminating article about seven items that are, amazingly, perfectly legal to have (language warning).  My favorites are the mini-gun and flamethrower:

 

Oh yes, they're both legal...

The author helpfully provides some verbage about why each of these things is legal, where one can get these things, and what an enterprising soul might do with each of them.  Very helpful, indeed!

To serenade you in off into your weekend, here is the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, conducting his own theme song (entrance at 1:50):

Have a great weekend!

Rounding Up The Week

We've gone over a lot of stuff this week. As you head into your weekend, I thought I'd try to cap off several of the biggest items with a bit of follow-up.

NY-23 (previous link)

Due to the incomprehensibly inept job of the New York (and national) Republican party picking Dede Scozzafava as their representative rather than Doug Hoffman, Bill Owens was able to squeak out a win. So, what happens when you elect a 'conservative' Democrat to office? Ahem:

New Congressman From NY-23 Breaks 4 Promises Within One Hour Of Taking Office

When Nancy Pelosi said "we won", she was right.

Owens indicated in a press release that he was now in favor of the bill in direct contrast to his earlier position during his campaign.

During his campaign for Congress, Mr. Owens assured voters that he felt the public option had no place in the health care reform bill.

Contrary to that position, Mr. Owens now indicates that he intends to vote in favor of the bill even though it now contains a public option.

Owens also promised to vote against cutting Medicare benefits, taxing health care benefits, and increased taxes on the middle class. All of those are "features of the House bill.

Here's the Owens statement of support for the bill.

Heck of job Republican County Chairs, heck of a job.

I'm guessing he'll be shown the door in about 12 months. Still, this race is a great case study on both RINOs -- as in, they might as well be Democrats, proven by the fact that Scozzafava dropped out and endorsed the Democrat Owens, and skimmed just enough votes to throw him the victory -- and Democrats who claim to be 'conservative'. Can't trust either one any farther than you can throw 'em.




Fort Hood (previous link)
The left-wing media is doing its best to ignore the fact that Nidal Hasan was a radical Muslim and appeared to be on a religious jihad when he murdered over a dozen U.S. soldiers and civilians. Hey, media types - here's a clue: anyone who screams, "Allahu Akbar!" while gunning down unarmed pregnant women is probably a radical Muslim bent on religious jihad.


And, for those who are concerned about the potential backlash against Muslims because of incidents like this, well, here are two things that should put you at ease. First, a chart posted by Michelle Malkin in 2007:

Second, this observation from Mark Steyn:

The Headline of the Day, from the BBC:

Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army

Really? Right now the body count stands at:

Non-Muslims 13
Muslims 0

Even if you are concerned that it would be terribly unfair if all Muslims were to be tarred by Major Hasan's brush, it is, to put it at its mildest, the grossest bad taste to default every single time within minutes to the position that what's of most interest about an actual actrocity with real victims is that it may provoke an entirely hypothetical atrocity with entirely hypothetical victims.

Just something to keep in mind as you wring your hands. By the way, if you were ever captured by radical Muslims, your hands would likely be the first (but only the first) things they'd cut off. Something else to keep in mind...

The Stimulus Swindle (previous link)

'Nuff said. (link)





ObamaKennedyDeathCare
The polls continue to prove that more and more Americans don't want it. One key result:

Opposition to The One’s plan is now a clear majority, up seven points since September; the number of Americans who want Congress to either make major changes to the bill, start over on the bill, or scrap the entire effort stands at a combined 72 percent...

Nancy Pelosi is trying to force a vote on this America-busting legislation this weekend because she knows that with each passing day, this bill becomes a little less likely to pass. So far, it looks like she's short of the votes she needs, but the Dems are apparently being cooped up in Washington and shuffled into her office for bribery/arm-breaking until she comes up with the magic number of 218. Will she get them? It's hard to say. It appears that the major bones of contention are the fact that illegal immigrants and abortion are both going to be covered by the bill; a big faction of Dems is fighting both of these measures, and another big faction of Dems won't sign on without them. Only time will tell which side stands firmer; your phone calls and e-mails will help tip the balance.

Oh, and the cost. When the CBO determines the cost of any bill in Congress, it always calculates the cost over 10 years. Due to budget trickery, the more expensive pieces of ObamaKennedyDeathCare aren't counted until about 4 years from now, so the number we've previously see ($900 billion) is way, way low (it only counts 6 years rather than 10). If you were to actually look at the cost of ObamaKennedyDeathCare's first 10 years after its actual implementation, the cost skyrockets to darn near $3 trillion.

And guess who's going to get to pay for that? Yep, that soon-to-be-much-poorer schlub you see every morning in your mirror. Oh, and that schlub's kids and grandkids. They'll actually get to deal with the bulk of it.

There's my two cents.

The Morning After

Not to belabor the point too much, but this cartoon from Michael Ramirez commenting on the elections earlier this week is simply too perfect to pass up:

RINOs, you have been warned.  Pay attention to the Right base, or suffer the political consequences.

There's my two cents.

Real Stimulus Is...

...surprise, surprise, it's TAX CUTS!!!

The failure of the stimulus package to create jobs and generate economic growth becomes more apparent each day – despite preposterous claims from the White House about all the jobs they say it has created and saved. Counter intuitively (at least in the sane world outside of Washington), the stimulus’ failure increases the risk that Congress will try to pass another stimulus package based on their perceived need to “do something” to help the still-ailing economy.

If Congress constructs the next stimulus the same way it did the last – jam packed with pork barrel spending projects favored by liberals – it will fail as miserably as the first did to create jobs and stir economic activity. That is because government spending cannot create economic growth. More government spending, whether financed by taxes or borrowing, only takes money from one sector of the economy and transfers it to another. The government creates no new spending power when it redistributes money so it creates no new economic growth.

As the Heritage Foundation has pointed out, a stimulus package that lowered marginal tax rates instead of spending massive amounts of future generation’s wealth would actually create jobs and help pull the economy out of the Great Recession. That is because lower marginal tax rates would increase the incentives of people and businesses to work, save and invest – the very ingredients needed to create economic activity.

In addition to their findings that tax cuts are better at promoting economic growth, Alesina and Ardagna found that spending-based stimuli are actually associated with lower economic growth rates.

The real-world and academic evidence is clear that government spending-based fiscal stimulus does not work. Congress should heed the findings of this important new study, and the proof right before its eyes, that spending more money does nothing to help the economy. It should come to this realization before it embarks on another stimulus package predicated on more spending instead of marginal tax rate cuts.

Yep, that's what real conservatives have been saying since before Bush tried the first stimulus package last summer.  Too bad no one in Washington has been listening.

There's my two cents.

About That Inherited Deficit Thing...

***BUZZZZZZZZ***

Wrong answer, try again:

Keith Hennessey takes apart a Peter Orszag speech, and in the process, the Obama administration's entire effort to blame Obama's predecessor for their wild, profligate spending in the middle of a terrible recession.  Speaking at NYU yesterday, the OMB director once again excused Barack Obama for inflating the 2009 defoicit to $1.4 trillion and projecting another $1.4 trillion by claiming that Bush made them do it:

Of the $9 trillion in deficits projected over the coming decade, nearly $5 trillion comes as a result of failing to pay in the past for just two policies — the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and the creation of a Medicare prescription drug benefit.

The cost of the tax cuts will total about $4 trillion over the next decade, including the additional interest on the debt the federal government will have to pay since the tax cuts were deficit financed.  The Medicare prescription drug bill will add about another $700 billion to the deficit – bringing us to about $5 trillion total for the cost of just these two policies.

In addition, roughly $3.5 trillion can be attributed to automatic economic stabilizers.

As the economy enters recession, certain spending programs, such as unemployment insurance and food stamps, automatically increase and revenues tend to decline.  Although this helps to ameliorate the economic downturn by stimulating demand, it also leads to higher deficits.

Finally, there is the Recovery Act which accounts for just 10 percent of the entire deficit over the next decade.

Hennessey explodes this argument:

Director Orszag is correct that neither the Medicare drug benefit nor the tax cuts were offset with other spending cuts or tax increases.  He fails to tell you that in 2003 Congressional Democrats wanted to spend more on Medicare drugs than the bill President Bush signed into law.  (President Obama was a State Senator at the time.)  He fails to tell you that President Obama did not propose means-testing the drug benefit to save money, as President Bush tried to do.  He also fails to tell you that President Obama's budget proposes to continue $3.2 trillion of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and the AMT patches that followed them.  (See the first few lines of Table S-5.)  He also fails to tell you that his $9 T figure includes $835 B for the stimulus and associated interest costs that President Obama clearly did not inherit.

While he wants to argue that these "$5 trillion" are "not his fault," the same could be said about all federal spending and taxes in place when President Obama took office.  Had Medicare not been enacted in 1965 or had Social Security benefits not been indexed to wages rather than inflation in the 70's, our budget would be in surplus today (if nothing else had changed).  It is misleading to attribute future deficits to any particular past policy change, as future deficits are the result of a calculation assuming unchanged extensions of all past policy changes into a path for total future spending and total future tax receipts.  Director Orszag is picking and choosing particular policies to try to assign blame.  How much of future deficits are because future Medicare spending was not offset when Medicare was enacted in 1965?

Hot Air points out the rather obvious fact that Barack Obama could have chosen any number of ways to handle the deficits when he took office.  What did he do?

He chose to continue the Henry Paulson-George Bush path of massive bailouts, corporate welfare, and added almost a trillion dollars that went straight to the deficit for Porkulus.  Those were choices made by Obama, not forced on him by Bush or anyone else.

And something else that is conveniently forgotten every time Obama whines about inheriting such huge deficits:

...these deficits come from Democrats.  Democrats have controlled Congress and therefore the purse since January 2007.  The last budget that the Bush administration signed went into effect in October of that year.  Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid played keep-away with the FY2009 budget, passing continuing resolutions until Bush left office and then an omnibus spending bill when Obama became President.  The $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009 is owed entirely to the Beltway triumvirate of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, and has nothing at all to do with George Bush.

The problem is that if liberals actually faced reality and dealt in facts and history, they couldn't rely on the blame-Bush game.  Fortunately, the American public is showing that its patience with that game is rapidly fading.

Good.

There's my two cents.

More SUCCESS On The Economy!

Or something like that:

The unemployment rate jumped to 10.2 percent in October, the highest rate since April 1983, the Department of Labor reported this morning. Psychologically speaking, I think the jump to "double digit" unemployment will make it a lot more difficult for the Obama administration to argue that the economic stimulus program is working well. The economy shed 190,000 jobs in October, which is a slower rate of losses than the revised 219,000 in September but higher than the 154,000 loses in August. There were also 808,000 discouraged workers who are not included in the unemployment rate because they aren't looking for work because they believe no jobs are available. That number is up from 706,000 in September.

That's just terrific.  I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty tired of the 'success' of hope-n-change!  Philip Klein goes on to discuss how we should judge Barack Obama's economic policies:

...let us not forget that when President Obama picthed the economic stimulus package in a February prime time press conference, he was pretty clear about his "bottom line":

My bottom line is to make sure that we are saving or creating 4 million jobs....

So my bottom line when it comes to the recovery package is send me a bill that creates or saves 4 million jobs....

But my bottom line is, are we creating 4 million jobs, and are we laying the foundation for long- term economic growth?...

And there was also this exchange:

QUESTION: -- how can the American people gauge whether or not your programs are working?

Can they -- should they be looking at the metric of the stock market, home foreclosures, unemployment? What metric should they use? When? And how will they know if it's working or whether or not we need to go to a Plan B?

MR. OBAMA: I think my initial measure of success is creating or saving 4 million jobs. That's bottom line number one, because if people are working, then they've got enough confidence to make purchases, to make investments. Businesses start seeing that consumers are out there with a little more confidence. And they start making investments, which means they start hiring workers.

So step number one, job creation.

Since the economic stimulus bill passed, about 2.9 million jobs have now been lost.

Kinda hard to argue with numbers like that, even for liberals.  This is why the American people are already ready for a change from the hope-n-change.

How much more of this 'success' can we take?  I dunno, but I'll wager things will get mighty interesting about a year from now...

There's my two cents.

Fort Hood Tragedy

Yesterday, a soldier went on a crazed shooting spree at Fort Hood in Texas, killing at least a dozen and injuring around 30 more.  He was finally stopped by a heroic policewoman, who was injured by return fire:

[Kimberly] Munley, who had been trained in active-response tactics, rushed into the building and confronted the shooter as he was turning a corner, Cone said.

"It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer," Cone said.

Munley was only a few feet from crazed Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan when she opened fire.

Who knows how many lives this woman saved?  Well done.  Thoughts and prayers go out to her and the other injured for a speedy and full recovery, and to the families of those who were killed.

The elephant in the room here -- something that the media appears to be largely trying to avoid reporting -- is that this murderer, Hasan, was a radical Muslim:

Terry Lee, a retired Army colonel who knew Hasan, told Fox News about a story he heard secondhand. He said a fellow colleague had told him that Hasan had made "outlandish comments" about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and US involvement in them and that "Muslims had a right to rise up and attack Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan."

"[He] made comments about how we shouldn't be over there – you need to lock it up, Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor," Lee added.

His name appears on radical Internet postings. A fellow officer says he fought his deployment to Iraq and argued with soldiers who supported U.S. wars. He required counseling as a medical student because of problems with patients.

There are many unknowns about Nidal Malik Hasan, the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base. Most of all, his motive. But details of his life and mindset, emerging from official sources and personal acquaintances, are troubling.

At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time such a thing has happened:

Sgt. Asan Akbar, a Muslim American soldier with the 326th Engineer Battalion, had an "attitude problem."

According to his superiors and acquaintances, Akbar's attitude was bitterly anti-American and staunchly pro-Muslim. So how did this devout follower of the so-called Religion of Peace work out his attitudinal problems last weekend?

By lobbing hand grenades and aiming his M-4 automatic rifle into three tents filled with sleeping commanding officers at the 101st Airborne Division's 1st Brigade operations center in Kuwait.

– Ali A. Mohamed. Mohamed, a major in the Egyptian army, immigrated to the U.S. in 1986 and joined the U.S. Army while a resident alien. This despite being on a State Department terrorist watch list before securing his visa. An avowed Islamist, he taught classes on Muslim culture to U.S. Special Forces at Fort Bragg, N.C., and obtained classified military documents. He was granted U.S. citizenship over the objections of the CIA.

Soon after he was honorably discharged from the Army in 1989, Mohamed hooked up with Osama bin Laden as an escort, trainer, bagman and messenger. Mohamed used his U.S. passport to conduct surveillance at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi; he later pled guilty to conspiring with bin Laden to "attack any Western target in the Middle East" and admitted his role in the 1998 African embassy bombings that killed more than 200 people, including a dozen Americans.

– Semi Osman. An ethnic Lebanese born in Sierra Leone and a Seattle-based Muslim cleric, Osman served in a naval reserve fueling unit based in Tacoma, Wash. He had access to fuel trucks similar to the type used by al Qaeda in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers, which killed 19 U.S. airmen and wounded nearly 400 other Americans.

Osman was arrested last May as part of a federal investigation into the establishment of a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon. Osman recently pleaded guilty to a weapons violation, and the feds dropped immigration charges against him in exchange for his testimony.

– John Muhammad. The accused Beltway sniper and Muslim convert was a member of the Army's 84th Engineering Company. In an eerie parallel to the Akbar case, Muhammad is suspected of throwing a thermite grenade into a tent housing 16 of his fellow soldiers as they slept before the ground-attack phase of Gulf War I in 1991. Muhammad's superior, Sgt. Kip Berentson, told both Newsweek and The Seattle Times that he immediately suspected Muhammad, who was "trouble from day one."

Curiously, Muhammad was admitted to the Army despite being earlier court-martialed for willfully disobeying orders, striking another noncommissioned officer, wrongfully taking property, and being absent without leave while serving in the Louisiana National Guard.

Although Muhammad was led away in handcuffs and transferred to another company pending charges for the grenade attack, an indictment never materialized. Muhammad was honorably discharged from the Army in 1994. Eight years later, he was arrested in the 21-day Beltway shooting spree that left 10 dead and three wounded.

– Jeffrey Leon Battle. A former Army reservist, Battle was indicted in October 2002 for conspiring to levy war against the United States and "enlisting in the Reserves to receive military training to use against America." According to the Justice Department, he planned to wage war against American soldiers in Afghanistan.

The problem we have here is that we face a real enemy who is perfectly happy -- and very proficient -- using our societal propensity toward tolerance to get close to targets and wreak havoc, death, and destruction.  When will we realize that radical Islam is a treacherous and extremely dangerous thing?  Don't get me wrong - I'm not talking about all Muslims, nor all who practice Islam.  I am talking about those who are exhibiting clear warning signs of radicalization, as all of these people did.  Do I think we should monitor all religious institutions?  No.  Do I think we should monitor all religious institutions that teach an ideology of hate, death, and destruction?  Absolutely.  Do I think we should profile all Muslims?  No.  Do I think we should profile all Muslims who associate with known terrorists, act suspiciously (like taking flying lessons but want to skip over the part about landing), and who take long trips to places like Afghanistan and Iran?  Absolutely.  It's common sense, and to do otherwise is to invite fatal incidents like this over and over and over.

And who is enabling these people?  Liberals and Leftists who have a grossly misplaced sense of priorities, and who would rather allow a murderous rampage than hurt anyone's feelings by implementing policies that acknowledge reality.  We have no further to look for evidence of this than our very own President:

On Thursday, 11 soldiers and civilian police at Fort Hood were slaughtered execution-style at close range and over 30 others wounded, allegedly by a U.S. Army Major Malik Nadal Hasan. The President immediately addressed the nation concerning this horrific event.

However, his expression of grief was very odd. He spent the first two minutes of the four-and-a-half minute address in a light-hearted discussion of his earlier "Tribal Nations Conference" on Native American rights, including a "shout out" recognition of a conference attendee.

When he finally got around to the purpose for his public appearance, he gave an uninspired and rambling dissertation on the tragedy. Even then, he could not keep the topic focused on sympathy for the pain of others:

I want all of you to know that as Commander in Chief, that there's no greater honor, but no greater responsibility for me (emphasis his) than to make sure that the extraordinary men and women in uniform are properly cared for…

Poor soul, it's so saddening to know how this tragedy affects him. Listening to this address provides some insight into Obama's character and how he ranks his priorities.

This is the same man who, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, expressed sympathy for the terrorists.  Anyone wonder why we're having these problems now?  Anyone doubt me when I say that liberalism is literally dangerous to our nation?  It's not what pulls the trigger, but it most definitely is what's loading the gun.

With Obama and other liberals running the country, I fear we will see more of these incidents in the years to come.

There's my two cents.

The World Is Ending On December 18th

Or maybe not.  That seems to be what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is telling us, anyway:

On August 11th of this year the Secretary-General told a gathering of the Global Environment Forum: “We must seal the deal in Copenhagen for the future of humanity. We have just four months. Four months to secure the future of our planet.” (emphasis added)

The Secretary General then went on to say the deal that had to be sealed in Copenhagen “to secure the future of our plant” would need to incorporate four key points:

• “First industrialized countries must lead by committing to binding mid-term reduction targets on the order of 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels.”
• “Second, developing countries need to take nationally appropriate mitigation actions in order to reduce the growth in their emissions substantially below business as usual.”
• “Third, developed countries must provide sufficient, measurable, reportable and verifiable financial and technological support to developing countries.”
• “Fourth, we need an equitable and accountable mechanism for distributing these financial and technological resources, taking into account the views of all countries in decision-making.”

These are fairly concise, unequivocal remarks for a UN diplomat, not exactly a group known for clarity even if it is histrionic. But that was then. More recently, the UN Secretary General said: “It may be realistic if we think Copenhagen will not be the final word on all these matters. But if we agree on a strong politically binding commitment that will be, I think, a reasonable success.”

“A reasonable success?” He thinks? What happened to “[f]our months to secure the future of our planet”? How can such a critical date for the fate of humanity be as flexible as when one does a load of laundry? It doesn’t seem to make sense, unless of course, the never really was such a crisis.

In politics, you should always follow the money.  In this case, the money is in America, and the U.N. is angling to force that money from our pockets into theirs in the name of their Green Religion.

Shameless flip-flopping like this is just icing on the cake of actual evidence to the contrary.  This is not a global crisis, it's a global scam.

There's my two cents.

Where Things Stand

Well, guess what?  Speaker Pelosi wants the House to vote on her version of ObamaKennedyDeathCare this Saturday, just eight days after the 2,000-page bill was unveiled.  I'm certain that every member of the House has been diligently reading, and has now fully comprehended every provision in there, aren't you?

The question is, of course, whether or not she'll be able to hold together her own fracturing party.  Given the major losses in key states earlier this week, many moderate Democrats and Dems in red-leaning districts are probably going to be more reluctant than ever to walk this plank.  However, she knows that the longer this things drags out, the less support she'll have to get it rammed down our throats.  Remember, the Dems initially wanted this thing passed into law by early summer.  We'll see how it plays out.

Despite the best efforts of the media to the contrary, the GOP has put together a perfectly viable alternative plan that would increase the freedom of American citizens to get the health care coverage that best meets their individual needs.  The CBO has now scored the GOP bill, and it's an astoundingly small number:

Their plan, which relies on interstate competition, HSAs, and tort reform, would only cost $61 billion in the first ten years of the plan — or slightly less than 6% of what Democrats plan to spend to overhaul the entire system:

This evening, CBO released a preliminary analysis of a substitute amendment to H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, proposed by Representative John Boehner, the Republican Leader in the House of Representatives. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that the amendment would reduce federal deficits by $68 billion over the 2010-2019 period; it would also slightly reduce federal budget deficits in the following decade, relative to those projected under current law, with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range between zero and one-quarter percent of gross domestic product.

Unlike the Democratic proposals, the bill would actually reduce premiums:

CBO anticipates that the combination of provisions in the amendment would reduce average private health insurance premiums per enrollee in the United States, relative to what they would be under current law-by 7 percent to 10 percent in the small group market, by 5 percent to 8 percent for individually purchased insurance, and by zero to 3 percent in the large group market.

Wow - this plan would increase freedom for American citizens, lower premium costs, enact tort reform, and improve quality and accessibility through increased competition...for a tiny fraction of the cost of the Democrat plan!  Sounds like a winner to me.

It's not all wine and roses, however, even from the Right:

There are some elements of it that are good, including allowing Americans to purchase insurance across state lines, giving businesses more flexibility to offer financial incentives aimed at encouraging people to be healthier, and expanding health savings accounts. But there are also plenty of new mandates imposed by the bill, including barring insurers from having annual or lifetime spending limits and a "slacker mandate" that would make insurers allow adults to stay on their parents insurance until age 25.

But more importantly, the bill doesn't do anything to move us beyond the employer-based health care system, a system in which the tax code discriminates against individuals purchasing insurance on their own, workers are locked into whatever insurance policies their employers choose for them, and they cannot take their insurance with them when they move from job to job. The GOP proposal isn't what I would consider real reform. It's more of a document that Republicans have put out so they can say they have some sort of health care bill that reduces premiums at a fraction of the cost of the Democrats' bill.

Also disturbing to me is that the one page summary of the bill has a chart titled, "Scorecard: Speaker Pelosi's Government Takeover vs. GOP Common-Sense Solution" in which the GOP boasts that while Pelosi's bill cuts Medicare by $500 billion, the Republican alternative has $0 of Medicare cuts. This is what we've come to -- a Republican Party that talks a big game about standing up for small government while openly touting the fact that their health care proposal does not touch the health care entitlement program that is bankrupting our country.

Those are some good points, and I've come to respect Philip Klein's opinion a great deal over the past few months.  Still, when compared to the Dem bill, it's a no-brainer.

Speaking of which, the Pelosi plan will kill federalism in health care.  Heritage explains:

Health care is too complex and intricate to micromanage at the federal level. The best, and most constitutional, way to enact reform would be to set the framework for change at the federal level and then allow decision-making and implementation to be determined by the states. This is in accordance with the federalism employed by the founding fathers in molding our nation into a democratic republic. The founders recognized the limits inherent in political power, thus specifically limited the power given to the federal government by the Constitution. As former Congressman Thomas Feeney writes in a recent paper:

The national government, under the Constitution, is responsible for the general concerns of the republic; the state governments are the custodians of the people’s trusts and are authorized to address their particular concerns. This is the essence of federalism.

An example of federalism at its best is the health care reform currently being implemented in Utah. Utah is launching a new health exchange operated by just two state officials, adding little to no cost to the taxpayer. The exchange is accompanied by a defined-contribution system, which allows employers to make contributions to their employers’ choice of one out of 66 plans in the exchange. Couples can combine their employers’ contributions, and since plans purchased in the exchange qualify as employer-sponsored benefits, participants are protected from discrimination based on pre-existing conditions. Lastly, independent risk-adjustment prevents insurers from cherry-picking healthy individuals. These and more changes to come will increase accessibility, portability, and affordability of health care in Utah.
Utah’s efforts prove that states can get health care reform right if the federal government simply gets out of the way. Conversely, Democrats’ tactics would amount to a Washington takeover of health care, and would, as Feeney writes:

…trample on the traditional preeminence that the states, under current law and the Constitution, have long held in enacting and improving the regulation of their very different health insurance markets.

Washington lawmakers should make changes at the federal level that make it easy for other states to follow Utah’s lead, allowing states to tailor reform to their specific needs and to learn from each others’ failures and successes, thereby determining the most effective means of reform.

These issues are the precise reason that the Founders set things up the way they did, and to centralize these decisions is to destroy the foundations of the country.

Rasmussen shows us that the American people understand what the public option will do:

Seventy-two percent (72%) of voters nationwide say passage of the proposed health care plan could lead companies to drop private health insurance coverage for their employees. Forty-eight percent (48%) say it's very likely.

The fact that people understand this plan is probably why there is so much overall opposition to it.

The last component of this update is a terrific visual from Heritage:

The key to this chart is the second graph showing the spending “cuts” in the H.R. 3962. Nobody in world believes those cuts will happen. Which is why the true cost of the House health Bill is $1.5 trillion.

If you are so inclined, get on the phone to your Rep, especially if he or she is a Democrat.  That's where the fate of ObamaKennedyDeathCare lies.

There's my two cents.

Related Reading:

Actual 10-year Cost of Pelosi Plan: $1.8 trillion

Pelosi to Insurers: Get On Board With the Government Takeover Or There Will Be Dire Consequences

Alphabet Soup Health Care Delusions

Europe Commits Suicide

In terms of freedom and liberty due to energy control, that is:

Czech President Vaclav Klaus has signed the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty proclaiming, “the Czech Republic will cease to be a sovereign state.” He’s right. The Lisbon Treaty contains the building blocks of a United States of Europe and will shift power from the member states of the EU to Brussels in crit­ical areas of policymaking, including defense, secu­rity, and energy–areas in which the United States finds more traction on a bilateral basis. The treaty is a blueprint for restricting the sovereign right of EU member states to determine their own foreign poli­cies, and above all, the treaty underscores the EU’s ambi­tions to become a global power and challenge Ameri­can leadership on the world stage.

It contains all the essential components of an EU super­state including a President, a Foreign Minister, a single legal personality, a diplomatic corps and a public prosecutor. Majority voting replaces unanimity voting in at least 40 new areas, including foreign policy, immigration, energy, humanitarian aid, sport and investment.

The Treaty states that henceforth, “Before undertaking any action on the international scene or entering into any commitment which could affect the Union’s interests, each Member State shall consult the others within the European Council or the Council.” Members will now subject their foreign policies to the judgment and wisdom of an EU body over which their peoples have no democratic controls. This is worse than liberal idealism; it is simply anti-democratic.

This is exactly what Barack Obama wants to do here, too - subjugating American interests to global thuggery.

Remember, if Obama puts America under any kind of global energy standards, it will be a permanent destruction of American prosperity and freedom.

There's my two cents.

Betraying The World

In a very real sense, Barack Obama is betraying all freedom-seeking peoples in the world.  Here's another gut-wrenching example:

The brave Iranian democrats are marching again today against the brutal killer regime on the 30 Year Anniversary of the siege on the US Embassy in Tehran.
The Iranians are protesting in Tehran, Tabriz,

The protesters called out to the Americans:

“Obama, Obama, Are you with the regime or with us?”

Sadly, we all know the answer to that question.
The Obama Administration stands firmly with the regime.

Just like he stands with all thug regimes around the world, and against freedom.  This, perhaps more than anything else, is the greatest failure of Barack Obama, just months into his presidency.

There's my two cents.

The Morphing Definition Of 'Saved' Jobs

Wow.  I'll just post this whole thing from Hot Air and let you read it all:

Obama administration: Raises count as jobs "saved"

This could only come from people who never worked in the private sector.  Almost by definition, an employee in the private sector who gets raises does not face any danger of having their job eliminated.  However, according to the Obama administration, salary increases coming from Porkulus count as jobs "saved":

President Barack Obama's economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.

The Georgia nonprofit's inflated job count is among persisting errors in the government's latest effort to measure the effect of the $787 billion stimulus plan despite White House promises last week that the new data would undergo an "extensive review" to root out errors discovered in an earlier report.

About two-thirds of the 14,506 jobs claimed to be saved under one federal office, the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, actually weren't saved at all, according to a review of the latest data by The Associated Press. Instead, that figure includes more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren't saved.

It's not the first time the AP has found these shenanigans in the White House claims on Porkulus, and they continue to do good work in rooting out more ridiculous calculations and assumptions.  The previous numbers also included raises given to employees as "jobs saved," which the White House said a couple of weeks ago were accounting mistakes for which they had corrected.  Now, however, the administration defends the practice as a feature, not a bug:

But officials defended the practice of counting raises as saved jobs.

"If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job," HHS spokesman Luis Rosero said.

No, it isn't.  A raise means the job wasn't at risk of being lost in the first place.   In fact, it's worse than that, as just a moment's thought would indicate.  It means that Porkulus spent money on a job that was secure that could have been spent on really creating or "saving" a job elsewhere.

When that didn't fly, the White House said that the overreporting was necessary to balance out underreporting elsewhere.  No, really:

Ed DeSeve, who oversees the stimulus at the White House, said the Head Start numbers "represent a few percent of all jobs reported" and said the problems would probably be balanced out by other errors that underreported jobs.

That stands as a clear admission that Porkulus has no reliable metrics for "saved or created" jobs, nor is the White House interested in creating any.  They want to make up the numbers to get the best political bang for the buck.  It's nothing more than Democratic pork spread to the special interests that fuel the Democratic Party, with a White House pulling jobs numbers out of a hat while unemployment skyrockets.

Update: Meanwhile, back in Chicago, they're saving more jobs than exist … kind of like Chicago elections.  Save early, save often!

More than $4.7 million in federal stimulus aid so far has been funneled to schools in North Chicago, and state and federal officials say that money has saved the jobs of 473 teachers.

Problem is, the district employs only 290 teachers. …

The Obama administration last week released the first round of data designed to underpin the worthiness of its economic stimulus plan, which so far has directed $1.25 billion to Illinois schools. That money has helped save or create 14,330 school jobs in the state, the administration claimed.

But those statistics, compiled initially by the Illinois State Board of Education, appear riddled with anomalies that raise questions about their validity, according to a Tribune analysis of district-by-district stimulus spending and other state data. Many local school officials were perplexed by the stimulus data attributed to their districts.

In the official report, Wilmette Public Schools District 39 was credited with 166 jobs saved by stimulus aid. Superintendent Raymond Lechner said the number should be zero.

At Dolton-Riverdale School District 148, stimulus funds were said to have saved the equivalent of 382 full-time teaching jobs — 142 more than the district actually has.

A similar discrepancy was found in data for Kankakee School District 111, where the stimulus report logged the equivalent of 665 full-time jobs saved. "That's impossible," a top Kankakee school official said, adding that the entire payroll — full and part time — is 600 workers.

Why not just claim a zillion jobs saved or created?  It would have just as much credibility.

These people need to be stopped before they do irreparable damage to this country through their lies and deceit.

There's my two cents.

Another Non-Existent Honor Killing

'Cause, you know, honor killings just don't happen, especially not in America...

Noor Faleh Almaleki has died of  the injuries she received when her father ran her over with his car because he felt she was becoming "too Westernized".

Faleh Hassan Almaleki fled the scene of the crime, but was apprehended a week later after he fled the country, abandoned his Jeep in Mexico, flew to London where he was denied entry and subsequently returned to Atlanta, where law enforcement officials were waiting to arrest him on charges of aggravated assault.

One of those charges should now read First Degree Murder.

Nope.  Not here, not in America.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Attempted Honor Killing In Arizona
Christian Convert Who Ran Away To Avoid Honor Killing Ordered Sent Home